New Gypsy Circle app hooks you up with friends on the road

I’m beginning to wonder how many brilliant ideas begin with the phrase, “So, I was backpacking through...”. Perhaps nearly the same number of brilliant ideas that occur on the toilet.

For 26-year-old Andrew Butash, it was somewhere between Lisbon and London that he realized there was no real way (and no app) to link his travels and itinerary with his friends’ current locations (whether visiting their home too or whether they, too, were just visiting), potentially missing out on meet-ups and adventures abroad. As he explains on his website:

“During this trip I came up with an idea of an app that would tap into your social network and be able to see where your friends are going to be in order to make linking up with friends or friends-of-friends that much easier — making travel a truly social experience."

The result is Gypsy Circle, a new smart phone app that Butash calls “the first future tense social network for travelers.” Basically, before your next trip, input your itinerary into the app and it will notify you of any friends visiting the same places at the same time or that live there.

Of course, all of them will also have to have to download the app and set up a profile (with the usual photo, location, and blurb), which is always a pain, but Gypsy Circle makes it as easy as possible, by linking with Facebook. In addition to its nice, clean interface (dig the cartography squiggles),  the app includes an internal messaging service (and an nice clean interface), no doubt a much more cost efficient way to keep in touch on the road than texting at international roaming rates, even compared to T-mobile's international plan.

You don’t only have to be traveling to make the app useful. It can also simply notify you whenever any friends are passing through your city (although this could lead to the nightmare of endless couch surfing requests). If Gypsy Circle adds travel booking capabilities, as Butash plans, that could be another good reason to try it. Plus, there's the always the gawking thrill of "stalking" your friends online.

Start your own Gypsy Circle by downloading the app free from Apple’s App store (Android users have to wait). It'll fit well beside our other favorite travel apps.