A recent UNC graduate is creating an app to help travelers connect in faraway, unfamiliar places – and he’s offering an all-expenses-paid hike on the Appalachian Trail to one lucky winner in a crowdfunding contest.

David LiCause is the founder of the tech startup Broke Compass. He graduated from UNC last August.

“Last fall, I spent a little over three months with a buddy of mine – another Carolina alum – bicycling across country,” said LiCause. “And we started in Yorktown, Va., and biked all the way to San Francisco, then down the coast a little bit to San Luis Obispo, and then flew back from there.”

That, in itself, is not news, of course. Many college students take adventures right after college, before joining the inevitable workforce.

But LiCause decided to parlay his adventure into an entrepreneurial venture.

“It was an incredible trip,” said LiCause. “And it inspired me to create Broke Compass, which is a tech startup, and we are building an app for travelers.”

The purpose of Broke Compass is to connect travelers with other travelers, in what LiCause describes as a “fun and organic way.”

While biking through long, unpopulated and beautiful stretches of Utah, for example, was a breathtaking experience, LiCause said the best part of the journey was meeting people along the way. So he’s working with a team of app developers to connect folks through group tourist events.

“The way the app works is that if you’re in an unfamiliar place, and if you want to go hiking or go on a tour, or go surfing on a beach – any sort of tourist activity – but you want to do it with other travelers, you can create an event on Broke Compass and meet up with fellow travelers in the area,” said LiCause.

The app is location-based, and utilizes Google Maps. Right now, finishing touches are being made to the prototype. A promotional campaign is being launched through Indiegogo to test the product.

“What we’re doing is raising $3,000 to sponsor a traveler’s journey along a section of the Appalachian Trail,” said LiCause. “And the way that’s going to work is, if you’re interested in hiking in the trail for a month, and are adept at social media, you can apply, and we’ll pick somebody who we think is a good fit. And then we’ll send you on an all-expenses-paid trip to hike a portion of the Appalachian Trail.”

The winning hiker will use the app, of course, and make regular posts to Broke Compass’s social media pages, to help build “a community of travelers.”

You can find the Indiegogo page “Broke Compass: Fund a Traveler, Build a Community” here.

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