Lugara Product Brief #3

It’s been a while since the last brief, so this one covers more: a fairer Exploration Score, more of you on your profile, and a new home for Lugara.

What’s new

A rebuilt Exploration Score: The old score divided your new places by your number of trips, so it could slide down while you kept exploring. The new one looks at four parts of how you travel, and a trip somewhere new never lowers it. It also gives you one of twelve traveler types, such as Globe Trotter or Trailblazer. A new Destination Novelty card below it shows how many of your trips took you somewhere you hadn’t been before.

Your number and type will change. The release post explains how the new score works.

Pick a style for your globe: The globe on your profile now comes in five styles. Theme tints it in your theme color, Blueprint draws your travels like a technical drawing, Aurora puts them under the northern lights, and Satellite shows them on the real Earth. Anyone can try them on their own map, and keeping one on your profile takes Lugara Pro. Open the palette button below the zoom buttons on your profile to try them, or have a look at the release post.

A bio and links on your profile: Tell visitors who you are in a short bio, and link your website and Instagram. They show under your name at the top of your profile. Add them in your account settings, on every plan.

A new lugara.me: The website has a new design, a tour of what Lugara does, and a page for each feature. The front page now opens with example profiles, and a few famous explorers hide among them.

Further improvements

Fewer surprises when adding trips: A newer model reads the sentence you type on /trips/new, and a question such as “What’s the weather like in Rome?” no longer becomes a trip to Rome. Add a Trip in One Sentence shows what it understands.

Dates that stay put: Your trip dates show the days you entered, whatever time zone you’re in. Before, some screens showed them a day early.

Territories count as their country: A trip to Hong Kong now counts toward China, and one to Réunion toward France and Europe. Your country count may change. Kosovo has its flag now, too.

Routes take the short way: A map connection from Tokyo to Los Angeles now crosses the Pacific instead of Europe.

Clearer errors: When deleting a trip, importing your data, or creating a share image fails, Lugara tells you why.

Backups include your profile: Your Lugara backup now carries your bio, website, and Instagram, and restoring it brings them back.

Easier to read and to use with a keyboard: Text has more contrast, and you can see where you are when you move through the app with the keyboard.

A page for billing: Your plan and its renewal date have their own Billing page in settings.

Help shape Lugara

Thanks for using Lugara. There’s a lot more coming, and your input shapes our next steps.

We avoid privacy invasive behavioral tracking in our app and lean on direct feedback because we believe it’s the most valuable input for deciding what we build next.

If you have suggestions, missing features, or anything that felt confusing, just email us, or hit us up on X.

Until next time, keep moving and exploring. 💃
— The Lugara Team