Reflections from Airheart

Lindsey Renken

Lindsey Renken

Co-founder / CEO

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The start of a new year is always a time for reflection. In this post, I’ll reflect on our own journey and share some product and company highlights from this first year at Airheart.

Before we get into it, I’d like to first and foremost take a moment to say thank you! The biggest highlight of the year by far has been hearing from and connecting with travelers from all around the world.

Since our launch seven months ago,

  • Over 1.86 million people from all corners of the globe have used Airheartto discover destinations open for travel and learn about the requirements for their trips.

  • More than 16k people have subscribed for email updates on changing travel restrictions or joined the waitlist to use our core product.

  • And over 581 support conversations took place to discuss these restrictions.

It’s apparent people want and need to travel, as we’ve seen this past holiday season. Even though it’s been a difficult year due to new COVID outbreaks and the ever-changing landscape of travel, we’re inspired by your bravery and honored to support you in your journey!

Airheart was founded on a mission to help people travel with confidence and pay homage to the trailblazers, past and present. Traveling is a way of life, it feeds the soul, and we want to help people to make the most of their trips.

Despite the difficulties presented by the pandemic, we believe international travel will bounce back and become even more accessible than before. The rise of location-independent work and the cooperation of governments to support this trend is encouraging. The circumstances have forced the industry to innovate, which is ultimately good news for travelers. We look forward to being a part of this story. More on this soon.

In the meantime, we’re excited to share that we  raised pre-seed funding from an incredible group of investors. With this financing, we’re able to continue to support our free service and launch our core platform in the coming months.

Additionally, we will continue to support and release new features to improve our Explorer product. The aim here is to help make planning around ever-changing travel restrictions easier for you.

Here are some highlights on what we’ve accomplished last year:

Route-specific email notifications

With these notifications, we help keep you informed of specific restrictions and policies that have changed for  your pinned routes .

This is an important feature and we aim to provide the most informative, timely, and easy to understand messaging.

We’ve had to pause the service twice this year to make improvements, in order to ensure the quality and accuracy of this automated system, and we thank you for your patience through this process. New and improved notifications will resume again very soon.

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Summary sections to quickly understand requirements for your route

Our country pages now have a summary at the top that gives an overview of the travel policies for the destination, and shows any policies that will be coming out to help plan your future travels.

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See information specific to your vaccination status

You can now filter by your vaccination status to learn about restrictions and policies relevant to your specific situation. 

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Support for non-sovereign nations

We’ve also expanded our list of supported regions to include non-sovereign nations such as  Hong Kong Bermuda , and  the Cayman Islands .

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See visa requirements

Thanks to our partnership with sherpa˚, we’re able to offer you select visas for purchase. You will find them and more information on visa requirements in our app.

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At-home COVID tests for your trip at 40% off

Even with the global test shortage, our partner, LetsGetChecked, is in-stock and can currently process kits sent in from the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the United States (excluding Alaska, New Jersey, and Rhode Island). Use the discount code AIRHEART at checkout to receive 40% off the listed price.  Check out their website to learn more.

Tips from knowledgeable travelers

Brave souls traveling the world during the pandemic have submitted their tips to help those traveling in their footsteps. Read route-specific tips on how to navigate COVID travel requirements in-route and on-location.

"You can take a rapid test if you're vaccinated, but a PCR test is required if you're not vaccinated. There are only two places in Iceland that offer a COVID test, but it was super easy to schedule the test and get in and out." — Tiffany Blaze

"We filled out a passenger locator form (PLF) that detailed our travel plans within Malta and attested to not recently being in contact with any positive cases of COVID. The PLF provided us with a QR code that we presented to anyone that asked upon arrival." — The FUNemployed Family

"In New York City, any indoor venue or dining will require you to show proof of your COVID vaccination along with a photo ID to match. Outside of the city, you may find that individual indoor venues or restaurants request this as well." — Megan Indoe

We hope you enjoy these new features! Let us know what you think by contacting us through our chat feature, or reach out to us on  Twitter Facebook or  Instagram .

If you think one of your friends or family members might benefit from using Airheart, share this post with them.

Safe Travels! 

Lindsey 

Co-Founder & CEO