The tool we keep wishing existed.
Every good trip starts the same way. You stumble across a blog post about a hidden beach. A YouTube video showing the best ramen street in Osaka. A friend’s Instagram story from a market you’ve never heard of.
You save it somewhere. A note. A bookmark. A tab you promise yourself you’ll come back to.
Then you save twenty more. And when it’s finally time to plan, half of them are gone, the rest are scattered across six different apps, and you can’t remember why you saved any of them.
That’s not a planning problem. That’s a research problem. And it’s the reason Epic Itineraries exists.
A decade in the making
This idea started more than a decade ago — two friends, some beers, and a shared enthusiasm for travel. We brainstormed a platform that could track, connect and discover. Maps, data, the works. Suggest itineraries. Surface patterns. Turn thoughts, preferences and constraints into an itinerary that actually made sense.
The problem at the time? Every conversation made it bigger. Every session added another feature,
another data source, another “what if we also…” Until it became the
kind of project that’s too big to start. So it sat there for years — a
great domain idea that never got smaller than enormous.
What changed since was the approach, not the ambition. Think big, start small, move fast. Most importantly, the first part of any trip — the research, the inspiration — still isn’t done well by any app out there. Ten years later, we still do research our way: searching online, following links, reading one good comment and checking if the author had more tips elsewhere.
Yes, some of the sources are new — we get inspiration from Instagram that wasn’t there at the time. Certainly the AI tools didn’t exist. Yet with all these new capabilities, the grunt work that some people actually find fun is still there. And for good reason. It builds anticipation, expectation, excitement.
We just need something to keep it all together. So that’s what Epic Itineraries is today. We use it, and believe others may find it useful too. As we keep collecting, keep discovering, keep experiencing and experimenting, this little thing might actually grow. Plenty of ideas!
How we think about travel planning
The best travel plans come from real people, not algorithms. The people who’ve been there. Who had the experience. Those who write detailed blog posts about their favourite neighbourhood in Lisbon, the vlogger who spent a month in Bali, the friend who always knows where to eat — their recommendations are worth more than anything an AI can generate on its own.
So our AI doesn’t invent. It organises. It reads what you’ve collected and structures it into a day-by-day plan. Every suggestion traces back to a real source. A source you added.
This means your itinerary is as good as the research you put into it. And we think that’s exactly how it should be.
Who’s behind this
Epic Itineraries is built by Edwin van Leeuwen — the kind of traveller who reads every restaurant review, digs up the off-the-beaten-track spots, and treats the research phase as part of the adventure. His family and friends have learned to be patient.
If you’re the kind of person who spends hours digging up the best places to eat, the best activities to do, and the spots the guidebooks missed — this was built for you.
It’s a Brainstorm IT project — a small studio in the Netherlands focused on building digital products that people actually enjoy using.
Got a question, idea, or just want to say hello? Drop us a line at hello@epic-itineraries.com.
Your next adventure starts with what you save today.
Every great trip begins with a spark of inspiration. Start collecting yours. Free to use. No credit card required.
Start Collecting — It’s Free