Travel apps are built for tourists. Basics is built for everyone else — the long-stay traveler, the new transplant, the digital nomad — who's done feeling like a visitor and wants to actually arrive somewhere.
Remote work, long stays, and rolling relocations have created a huge new class of traveler — the in-between. They stay two weeks, two months, sometimes forever. They don't want to feel like tourists, and they don't have a tool built for them. That's our user.
Two months in Lisbon. Cobbling together Reddit, Google Maps, and a friend's texts.
Just moved to Portland. Wants to belong, not just survive year one.
Three cities a year. Re-onboards from zero every time. No memory carries over.
Back in Tokyo for the fourth time. Still browsing the same tourist lists as trip one.
One app to install. Account, passport of cities, points, streaks. Stays minimal worldwide. The civic loads on top.
SThe Code (unwritten rules), the Map (places by vibe), the Rhythms (this week), the Quests (depth, not breadth), the Perks (real local discounts). One paid curator per city.
CStarts simple: Vibe Check — pick your mood (quiet coffee, slow walk, night out, date night) and the map shows the places and neighborhoods that match. Every place card carries a vibe line in a local voice. Later, an AI learns your vibe over time and builds itineraries from it.
PFour things that mark you as someone who belongs: one piece of attire to add, ten phrases with native audio, local gestures — namaste, the four-way wave, the elevator silence — and the Sound, the track the city is playing this week. The visible-tourist tells, neutralized.
BReal humans who pass a civic fluency exam, not a job interview. Badged by domain — Food, Nightlife, Outdoors, Old Soul. Meet for coffee. No tour script. The deepest version of the civic.
MYour travels, threaded. Every city auto-stamps your moments. Wishlist things from TikTok — surfaced when you arrive. Eat Indian food in Portland? The app remembers when you land in India. The more cities, the smarter it gets.
⌖On install, an AI agent has a real conversation with you — your taste, your mood, your purpose for being here, your hobbies, what you avoid. It builds a profile that lives with you across every city. Then anywhere you go, you can ask anything in your own words — the agent already knows what you mean.
Every city you live into becomes a chapter you keep. Auto-stamped quests, Mate chats, places you returned to, dishes you loved — saved as a journal you'll re-read for years. Wishlist things from TikTok and they surface the moment you arrive somewhere they fit. Eat Indian food in Portland because someone said it was the best outside India? When you land in Bangalore, the app remembers.
The hardest column to win is the last one. Cross-city memory only works if you've used the app in multiple cities. No competitor has the architecture to even attempt it. That's our moat.
| Local content |
Code + Blend |
Persona AI |
Real locals |
Wishlist intake |
Cross-city memory |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Maps | ||||||
| Spotted by Locals | ||||||
| Withlocals | ||||||
| Polarsteps | ||||||
| Day One / Photos | ||||||
| TripAdvisor | ||||||
| Basics |
The first version of Portland Basics is being built now for iPhone: a map-first home, The Code, The Blend and Civic Mates. One city, done right, then the next chapter. New to Portland, a long-time local who'd make a great Civic Mate, or just curious? Say hello.