Spontaneous Travel With Burdie.Co:
What’s a Burdie?
Posted by Team Burdie
March 6, 2019
As you’re hopping from one page to another over on the burdie app or scrolling through the world on our Instagram feed, do you ever wonder…What even is burdie? Well, today we’d like to set the record straight and tell you what we’re all about.
From the top
Burdie started as a merging of two ideas between two siblings, Hasin and Samiha. Samiha, a student of urbanism and new media, wanted to create a simple tool that informs people about random cities around the world. Hasin, a product designer, wanted to create an interface that displays information in an ultra-simple, minimal way. Our skills and interests supplemented each other and our visions intertwined — a collaboration was only natural.
So, we decided to put our two ideas together and mix in one of our mutual passions: travel. And just like that, Burdie came to be.
In a purely literal sense, “burdie” is just what we decided to call our travel app and everything associated with it. The name — as you might have guessed — is taken from the English word for a certain type of creature whose primary means of transportation is flying: birds. We liked the simplicity of the word and its association with knowledge (“a little bird told me…”). It’s also a short word that can be easily understood by all kinds of people around the world. As an added bonus, everyone knows that birds are cute.
A Burdie State of Mind
In every other sense, burdie is a philosophy, a state of mind. Burdie represents freedom, migration, and perseverance. Burdie is about taking chances and spreading your wings, about thinking a little bit less and doing a lot more. Burdie is about trusting your ability to find happiness no matter where you are.
As lifelong travelers, we’ve always been on the risk-taking, free-spirited side. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have days when we’re feeling lazy and uninspired. Or anxious. Or jaded and hopeless, as if nothing in the whole damn world could possibly excite us, move us. Of course, it’s okay to feel this way sometimes, but when you’re on the road there are so many ways to pull yourself out of it. The point of travel is to see the world, to experience the good, the bad, and the ordinary. The point is to see it all for yourself, to allow yourself to be take part in it.
Burdie Living
In our own lives, we use the burdie state of mind as a way to push ourselves out of the slump. In those moments when we’d rather stay in bed till noon than wake up at 5am to catch the sunrise or the times when taking an Uber is faster than taking a scenic walk, burdie is there to remind us to choose adventure over comfort. Burdie reminds us to create our own opportunities to have fun, see cool things, and find joy in everyday life. In fact, some of our greatest travel memories happened because we pushed ourselves to be spontaneous. It’s not always easy, but it helps to have something to motivate us.
You, Me, & Burdie
One of our main goals with the burdie app is motivate other travelers and would-be travelers to be spontaneous with their journeys, to spend less time planning and more time living. On the app, you’ll quickly notice that all of our travel recommendations are dispensed randomly. As of now, you cannot browse through cities the same way you would on say, TripAdvisor or Travel + Leisure. We’ve intentionally made the app this way, as we realized that we’ve been missing out on incredible cities just because they haven’t yet been featured on any “top 10,” “must-see,” “happiest” lists.
Did you know that we’re not compensated in any way by the places and attractions that we promote on burdie.co? Our mission is just to show you that there is beauty in every part of the world, because we have experienced it firsthand and want to share it with other. Through burdie, we hope you find and book a trip to a city that you never knew about, a unique place that isn’t on any recommendation lists. And just go. Enjoy. Be present.
All we ask from you is this: take chances. And when someone asks how you came to know about a cool under-the-radar city, tell them that a little burdie told you to check it out. :^)
Have you used burdie yet? Do you have feedback for us? Let us know in the comments below!
Love you,
Samiha & Hasin
Founders, Burdie.co
