Adventure Buddy
Adventure Buddy
What is Adventure Buddy?
I've always believed that time in nature is better shared. A summit feels bigger with someone next to you; a long trail goes quieter and easier in good company. But the more I hiked, the more I noticed a strange gap: the trail was never the hard part. Finding someone to walk it with was.
Adventure Buddy started from that observation. The outdoors is full of people who'd love a companion and full of barriers keeping them apart. Friend groups don't always overlap with the people who actually want to be outside. Dating-style apps reduce people to a stack of profiles to swipe through, which feels hollow when what you're really after is a shared experience, not a match. Big organized groups can feel impersonal or intimidating to walk into cold. So a lot of people who love nature end up going alone, or not going at all.
I wanted to build something where connection comes from doing the thing together, not from browsing strangers in advance.
The insight that shaped everything: I’m not my user
This is the part I had to be honest with myself about. I love to hike, but I am not my user.
As a confident, experienced hiker, I can pick a trail and head out alone tomorrow without a second thought. That confidence turned out to be a liability as a designer, because it's exactly what my users don't have. The friction they feel isn't physical, it's social. They want to be out there, but they're held back by not knowing who to go with, not trusting a stranger's pace or intentions, or not wanting to show up to a group where everyone already knows each other.
Recognizing that gap forced me to stop designing for my own ease and start designing for the moment before the hike, the part I take for granted but my users find genuinely hard.
Who’s Adventure Buddy for?
Adventure Buddy is for people who love being in nature, or want to, but for whom the obstacle is companionship rather than the outdoors itself. That includes people new to a city who haven't found their outdoor crowd yet, people whose existing friends just aren't into it, and solo adventurers who want company on the trail without it being framed as a date. What they share is a desire for genuine connection through a shared activity, and a low tolerance for the transactional feeling of most ways of meeting people online.
Persona
Maya Okafor
Maya is a 30-year-old who moved to the Portland, Oregon area a year ago and has quietly made hiking the rhythm of her weekends, nothing extreme, just steady miles on good trails at a pace she can sustain and enjoy. She's not chasing summits or tracking elevation gain; she's in it for the movement, the air, and the way a few hours outside resets something in her that nothing else quite does.
Maya’s looking for someone who gets that, a buddy who shows up consistently, walks at a comfortable clip, and doesn't need to turn every hike into a race.
Painpoints
Maya’s pain points
A year in Portland, still hiking solo. Maya has built a steady weekend rhythm, but it's a rhythm of one. Her social circle doesn't overlap with people who hike, and a year in she still hasn't found her trail crowd. Adventure Buddy lets buddies form around shared outings instead of waiting on luck and overlapping friend groups.
Pace and intensity almost never match. Maya wants sustainable miles, not a summit push. The few people she's hiked with either treat it as a race or expect something more extreme than the reset she's after. Pace, distance, gear, and meeting point are agreed together before anyone sets out, so she's matched on how she likes to hike, not just who happens to be free.
Swiping doesn't fit what she's looking for. Maya isn't after a date or a profile to evaluate; she wants someone who simply understands why a few hours outside matters. Connection here comes from the outing itself, not from browsing strangers in advance.
She wants consistency, not a one-off. What Maya really needs is a buddy who shows up week after week. One-time group hikes don't build that. Hosting and attending repeat adventures lets a genuine, recurring rhythm form between the same people.
Heading out alone in a place she's still learning. A year in, Maya doesn't know every trail yet and often goes solo. She can share her route with a trusted contact, and the app checks in when she finishes.
Worried she's "not hardcore enough." Maya does nothing extreme, and outdoor spaces can quietly make that feel like a shortfall. The ethos is the opposite: everyone's welcome on the trail, and a comfortable clip is the point, not a compromise.
Hill
Maya can find a hiking buddy who matches her pace and keeps showing up week after week, without ever swiping through a single profile.
Maya’s story
Adventure Buddy
Adventure Buddy is live. Try the working prototype for yourself, right here.
Outcomes
Maya finds a pace-matched buddy without swiping. She joins or hosts her first outing and reports the pace felt right, measured by a post-hike "good match?" check and the share of first outings rated a fit.
The buddy keeps showing up. Maya hikes with the same person more than once, measured by repeat-pairing rate (how many matches turn into a second, third, fourth outing together).
Solo weekends become standing ones. Hiking shifts from sporadic to rhythmic, measured by the number of users with a recurring buddy and outings-per-month trending up.
Connection comes from the outing, not a profile. People meet by doing measured by buddies formed through attended hikes versus any pre-outing browsing, and time-to-first-real-outing staying low.
She heads out feeling safe. Signal: Maya uses route-share and the check-in closes cleanly measured by share of solo/new-trail outings with a trusted contact attached and completed check-ins.
Real outings over endless profiles. Find buddies through shared adventures, not swiping and let the trail do the talking.