THE SOLO TRAVELLER
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Tools and Tech
Brian visiting the monolithic moai stone human figures on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile. Image courtesy Brian Wong.
From frustration to innovation
A Q&A with Brian Wong, founder of Suna
Saved places forgotten, recommendations that couldn’t be trusted and opportunities missed. For Australian product manager Brian Wong, these familiar travel frustrations became the inspiration for Suna, a discovery app he began developing while travelling through Asia.
Having left Australia in June 2025 with a flexible itinerary, Brian was spending around a month in each country when he began questioning why finding somewhere worthwhile to visit remained so difficult. Rather than continue juggling different sources, he began building an alternative on his own phone. What started as a personal solution has since developed into an iPhone app offering personalised recommendations, local event listings, itineraries and reminders when users approach places they’ve saved. Its coverage is still expanding, and Brian is candid about the limitations of developing a product while travelling.
You developed the idea for Suna while travelling through Asia. What were you finding difficult about discovering places and experiences along the way, and what convinced you that another travel app could offer something different?
When I left Australia in June 2025, the plan was pretty loose. Find somewhere cheap, stay a month, work the rest out when I got there. Finding places was never the problem. Trusting them was. Google Maps gave us plenty of recommendations, but the reviews were always iffy, and we didn’t trust the paid ones. The rest felt biased, depending on who wrote them and what kind of day they’d had. So I started getting my recommendations from TikTok instead, but half of it was hype and I never knew what was actually worth going to.
There was also another problem. I’d saved so many places on Instagram and never went to most of them. By the time I was standing in a new city, I couldn’t remember a single one of them None of the apps I tried really fixed that. They’re great at showing you what’s around. They’re not great at telling you what’s worth doing this week. So I started building the thing I wanted on my own phone.
Suna recommends nearby places based on a traveller’s interests, suggests itineraries and sends reminders when someone approaches a saved location. How does this work in practice, and what can a solo traveller do with Suna that they couldn’t easily do with existing mapping and discovery apps?
You open Suna and it gives you a handful of places and events near you. Swipe right on what you like, and it’s saved; swipe left and it learns that’s not your thing. After a few days, the picks start to feel like they know you. The bit I use most is the reminder. When I walk past somewhere I saved weeks ago, Suna lets me know. Most of the time that’s what gets me through the door instead of walking straight past.
You can also just ask it things, like “Anything free near me this Saturday?”, and it answers from real listings. If you see a place on Instagram or TikTok, you can share the post to Suna, and it pulls the places out for you. You can also copy itineraries that locals and creators have put together. For a solo traveller, it’s having all of that in one spot: this week’s events, what’s open now, and a nudge when you’re close. Maps is still the best for getting there. Suna’s for working out where to go.
Suna in action: Home: ‘Right now, near you’; Discover: places and events near you; What's around you; and Saved places. Images © courtesy Suna.
One of Suna’s promises is to help travellers discover lesser-known places rather than repeatedly directing them towards familiar attractions. Where does that information come from, and how do you check that recommendations are accurate, current and genuinely useful?
Events come from the organisers themselves. Every event is checked against the organiser’s own page before it goes up, and a person approves it. If an organiser asks us not to list something, it comes off.
Places come from our own list, which we’re building city by city, plus travellers and creators adding the spots they love. Each place is tagged by who goes there: mostly locals, a mix, or mostly tourists. That’s how Suna can steer you away from the obvious ones if you want.
Is it always right? No. Opening hours change, events get cancelled, and we’re a small team. So we stick to the organiser’s own page, date everything, and take things down once they’ve finished. I’d rather show you five things I know are on than fifty I’m guessing at.
Suna is currently available for iPhone, with event listings concentrated in four cities and some limits on free use. How useful is the app for someone travelling independently through destinations outside those areas, and what are its present limitations?
Outside Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney, Suna still works for places. You can save spots, get the reminder when you’re close, ask it questions and follow itineraries. What you’ll see less of is dated events. We only list the ones we’ve checked, and so far we’ve done that properly in those four cities.
Everything except the AI features is free, in every country. On the free plan, you get three ‘Ask Suna’ questions and one AI itinerary a day. Pro takes the daily limit away and adds a detailed trip plan, and new accounts get a seven-day Pro trial. The other limits are pretty simple. It’s iPhone only for now. Android is coming, and you can join the waiting list. Smaller towns are still thin, so a quiet city can look emptier on Suna than it really is.
You’re developing Suna while travelling yourself, giving you an opportunity to use it in unfamiliar destinations. What have you learned from that experience, and what feedback have you received from other travellers?
The biggest lesson was to test it where people will actually use it, not just wherever I happen to be. I’ve worked on Suna in places where it had almost nothing to show. That was humbling. It made me fix the empty screens first. I also learnt that nobody opens an app like this every day. They open it when the question comes up: “What are we doing tonight?” or “Is there anything around here?” So it has to be ready in that moment, and it has to give you one good save early, because the people who save something come back.
The feedback has been really practical. A user in Seremban wanted theatre, concerts and exhibitions, so we added the city’s culture venues. Creators wanted to add places we didn’t have yet, so now you can paste a Google Maps link. Plenty of people didn’t want to sign up before looking around, so now you can just browse. What still needs work is more cities with proper event listings, and Android. What I first pictured was a local friend in every city who knows what’s on this week. We’ve got that in four cities. Now it’s about getting it everywhere else.