LOKO.travel

General maps miss what visitors need

Google Maps and OpenStreetMap have gaps in a place like Hội An's Ancient Town. They rarely say how long a tailor needs, what a place costs, whether the opening hours are current or which languages the staff speak.

Car navigation has its own problem. Vehicles are banned from the Ancient Town during walking hours (09:00 to 11:00 and 15:00 to 21:30), yet generic apps still send taxis into those streets.

A place database on a vector map

Places are being re-checked on foot, and each one shows when it was last verified. Lantern Mode turns the parchment-style map into a warm amber night scene, and a 3D mode raises the shophouse blocks.

During walking hours, directions split into a walk to the nearest pickup gate, such as An Hội Bridge Gate, followed by a drive.

One server for every host

A single Bun process serves loko.travel, hoian.loko.travel and the Đà Nẵng waitlist, with Hono routing each request by hostname. The sites share API endpoints and design tokens.

Two SQLite databases

The place catalog (hoianhub.db) is kept apart from user data such as sessions and the waitlist (hoianhub-user.db). SpatiaLite handles spatial queries, and sqlite-vec is in place for semantic search.

Map stack with no keys

MapLibre GL draws OpenFreeMap vector tiles, styled at runtime with a Hội An color palette. Routing uses the public FOSSGIS OSRM service, so there is no per-view bill from a map provider.

3D landmarks

Three.js places models of landmarks on the map, including An Hội Bridge, Cẩm Nam Bridge and the Phúc Kiến and Quảng Đông Assembly Halls.