What happened to Hitlist?
A long time ago (I have no idea when), I optimistically downloaded the Hitlist travel app and installed its accompanying Google Chrome Wandertab app. Hitlist boasted cheap flight deals and a user-friendly interface to filter your travel possibilities: where can I go for a weekend for less than $200? How far can I get for $400? Just set your home airport and see deals to destinations all over the world. I wasn’t actually doing much traveling, even for weekend getaways under $200 (#broke #actor), but opening new browser tabs with the Wandertab app to colorful images of markets in Marrakesh or forests in Finland and a button beckoning me to search for cheap flights starting at x amount of dollars (only 907 bucks round-trip from Atlanta to Johannesburg!?) let my imagination take a little world tour in between mundane social media scrolling and work tasks.
The phone app allowed you to make lists of where you wanted to go and where you’d been, which you could share, like a world map on your wall with pins to mark the ground you’ve covered (a thing I deeply wanted on my wall as a kid). An app update from 6 years ago in the App Store speaks to the developers’ passion for making connections abroad:
“There are so many things we love about travel, but the friendships forged, both new and old, are what keeps us coming back for more.”
They made the app more social, introducing the aforementioned shareable lists of places traveled and dream trips. A trip planner let you track deals for specific flight itineraries and share suggested vacations with friends and family, who could follow you in the app.
And the Wandertab was like StumbleUpon for rolling stones (or those who liked to imagine rolling around the world, like me). I didn’t use the phone app very frequently, but to this day, I still have the Wandertab on my Chrome. It stopped working properly… months? years? ago. It’s been stuck on a $907 flight deal from Atlanta to Johannesburg with no image for a very long time. I happened to be procrastinating enough today that I finally clicked the button to see a) if it’s working at all, and b) if I could change my origin airport to Guadalajara, Mexico, where I’m temporarily currently located.
Well I guess the answer is no, and no. In the App Store, the last Hitlist update was in 2018. According to a Reddit thread from earlier this year, the app had gone dark amidst the pandemic (as I suppose was to be expected for travel-based businesses) but briefly came back online in April for about a month before falling silent again. Their latest tweets end in May 2021. I wasn’t really paying attention, but I think Johannesburg might’ve had an image for a moment in April/May now that I think of it.
The app is still downloadable, but nothing loads within it. Their Help feature is broken, but the Contact button opens up an email, so I tried writing them a message to see if this is temporary hibernation or a permanent fadeaway. Will update if I get a reply.
I guess the fact that I hadn’t even noticed they were gone indicates that I was no longer finding the phone app useful. I can’t remember the last time I opened it. I do mourn the loss of my lists of where I’ve been and where I want to go a bit, though. I spent a decent chunk of time exploring destinations in the app in the early days to curate those lists. But most of all I miss the Wandertab. In its place, I get too many emails from Scott’s Cheap Flights, and when it comes time to book my trips, for the most part I go to Google Flights or straight to Delta.
What do you think happened to Hitlist? Pandemic casualty or naturally edged out by competitors?