Wander is a travel technology company that opens the world to travel, discovery, and exploration one destination at a time. Wander’s products empower people to explore, live in the moment, connect deeply with the destination, and have fun in a way that strengthens the communities and ecosystems they visit.
Wander was a strong participant in Arieli’s OnBoard travel-tech scale-up program and received an investment from the firm in 2023. The company was founded by AJ Brau in 2020 following a frustrating travel experience that occurred over a decade ago. Attempting to navigate around Lake Powell with a standard paper map and unreliable GPS service, Brau decided there has to be a better solution – she developed the Lake Powell Map App, which after two years was published as the first offline, satellite, GPS-enabled map app on the app store. It was on the App Store for several years and used by thousands of Lake Powell Visitors and the National Park Rangers.
Since, the company developed Wander Map Builder, which creates, customizes, and updates maps in real time and can be used offline. Wander maps can be embedded on any site, accessed as a stand-alone webpage, or through the Wander App, and can be published and shared. In addition, users can see real-time usage and engagement metrics for their distributed maps.
Wander’s goal is to make traveling and recreation safer and easier by making it as simple as possible for destinations to share their knowledge with visitors through a custom interactive map experience.