As someone with a serious case of wanderlust, an iPhone and no budget for world travel, Wayfare (free) is a lot of fun. It hooks you up with a user across the globe, and the two of you spend a week sharing photos, comments and culture via fun, simple "missions." I've become so enamored with Wayfare that it earned a permanent spot on my iPhone's home screen after one day of testing.
Wayfare is clearly presented though skeuomorphic elements that may bother those who lack a sense of fun. There are four main screens: profile, settings, "My Guide" and your journey history. Some clever touches include a map of the each user's home country in the background and a "boarding pass" that looks like a boarding pass. The photos you share with your "guide" are arranged in an orderly list. Overall it's an attractive app, but its real appeal is in using it.
Use
You'll forgive my gushing but I've had so much fun with this app. I've seen snippets of like in Dublin and Mumbai while sharing my own corner of New England. When a notification pops up saying my guide has shared something, I stop to see what it is. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's how to get started with Wayfare.
After creating your own profile, you'll pick an available destination. Wayfare has participants in 113 countries as of this writing, speaking over a dozen languages. Once you've selected a country you'd like to explore, the app matches you with an appropriate user. From there, the seven-day exploration begins. When your week is up, that person goes into your friends list and you're free to explore another country with a new person.
You and your partner explore each other's corner of the world via "missions." There are many to choose from, each designed to highlight a part of your every day. Wayfare maintains two lists of missions: a main list and another list of recommendations. Some of the recommended missions include: 1. What I'm doing right now. 2. The view from my window. 3. Something I love to eat. 4. My shoes (don't laugh, you'll find huge variations here!) 5. Someplace I go to enjoy nature. 6. Something I see very day.
Other missions highlight your neighborhood, like "Something my city or town is known for." Once you've selected a mission, take a photo that satisfies it and add caption. Finally, click Done. Your partner is then prompted to meet the same mission, and you can opt to receive a push notification when he or she has done so.
And that's when it gets fun. Soon you're seeing snippets of real life from somewhere far away. You can comment on each other's photos and there's no limit to the number of missions you can complete in a day.
There are a few nice touches here as well. The app always lets you know what time it is in your partner's city or town, so you won't bother to nag them while they're asleep. There's also a translation feature which, unfortunately, I was unable to test. How it worked in the demo is, I tap and hold on a comment that's not in English, and it gets translated. It looks cool, but I was only paired with English-speakers.
I have a few minor complaints. First, scrolling through the timeline of completed missions is jaggy on my iPhone 5c. Perhaps more powerful iPhones are up to the challenge, but my 5c struggled a bit. Also, the title bar in the same view is transparent, so it's possible to have overlapping text, which is impossible to read. A simple scroll "fixes" it, but still...
Finally, I had a hard time finding how to start a new mission. There's a "+" icon at the bottom of the screen next to the label "Send a message." It suggests that the "+" is for text, but in fact it's for commenting and selecting a mission.
Conclusion
Those issues aside, I'm in love with Wayfare. It's tremendously fun to see what people of other cultures are experiencing in their ordinary, daily lives. Check it out and explore the world.
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