02 / APP EXPERIMENT
● IN TESTING
A day on the road.
Minus seventeen tabs.
A daily vanlife planner for the practical bits between the beautiful views. Gyms, showers, diesel, groceries, somewhere to stop — and a route that makes sense.
Built with AI tools. Tested on actual roads. Still learning.
THE LIVE ROUTE BUILDER
One starting point. One destination. Several requirements.
01 / THE PROBLEM
A gym. A shower. Diesel. Somewhere to sleep.
Living in a van involves a surprising amount of logistics. The beautiful bits are relatively easy. It’s everything you need to organise around them that takes time.
I’d find a gym, then discover the shower situation was unclear. Find a place to park, then realise the detour made no sense. Add diesel, groceries and a limit on driving, and suddenly there were seventeen tabs open.
So I started building Petalander: one place to say what I need today, where I’m going and what Petal can handle.
THE ACTUAL BRIEF
Petal has requirements.
2.9 m high
5.8 m long
Daily: gym, ideally a shower, and somewhere sensible to stop.
And preferably not five hours of driving because somebody found a nice supermarket 200 kilometres away.
01 / ASK
What do I need?
Choose a direction, departure time, driving limit and today’s practical requirements.
02 / COMPARE
What makes sense?
Compare suggested stops, alternative routes and the time each option would take.
03 / CHECK
What still needs checking?
Review what is verified, what is uncertain, and what needs a human decision.
02 / INSIDE THE EXPERIMENT
One request. A plan for your day.
The interesting bit isn’t finding things on a map. It’s deciding which stops belong together, in what order, and whether they fit into the day.
A SHORTER TEST
Two possible routes. Both within the limit.
In this test around Almería, Petalander produced two options for diesel and a gym. Both routes fit within the requested three-hour driving allowance.
82 min / 111.2 km
Diesel, followed by a gym before the final drive.
91 min / 115.7 km
Diesel, followed by a gym closer to the destination.
Important: The routes fit, but gym access, shower availability and some other stop details still need checking.
TWO PROPOSED ROUTES
Two alternatives. Neither exceeds the driving cap. Some services remain unverified.
THE STOPS HAVE JOBS
Assign activities to stops, change their order and adjust how long each stop should take.
THE GOOGLE MAPS HANDOFF
A separate, longer-distance test showing the selected stops exported into Google Maps.
03 / THE ROAD IS THE TEST LAB
Three hours requested. Eight hours proposed.
Not every test goes beautifully.
In a longer-distance test, I set a maximum of three hours of driving. Petalander suggested routes taking more than eight.
To its credit, it flagged the conflict clearly. But a warning isn’t the same as a useful plan. The next challenge is making the tool respect those limits before suggesting an itinerary.
Also on the test list: checking gym memberships, showers, diesel availability and whether Petal can physically access a stop.
THE HONEST FAILURE
The driving cap was exceeded. The app spotted it. The plan still needs to improve.
04 / MADE FOR ACTUAL TRAVEL
Built on a laptop. Needed on a phone.
Petalander is being built while I’m travelling in Petal. That makes the testing fairly immediate.
A tool can look lovely on a large screen. It’s a different question whether it’s still useful when you’re parked somewhere unfamiliar, planning tomorrow and running out of patience.
That’s why the phone experience is part of the experiment, not something to worry about at the end.
PETALANDER ON MOBILE
The live route builder. In my pocket.
05 / WHAT’S NEXT?
The difference between a clever demo and a useful tool.
Petalander is an experiment, not a finished product. I’m learning how to combine AI, maps and real-world constraints into something that helps rather than creating more checking work.
Built with Lovable, mapping and routing services, and AI. Developed through experimentation, actual trips and a reasonable amount of trial and error.
