Travelling should be about exploration of the new and unseen, of experiences not yet had. It should not require stressing about arrangements and fretting about how to stay connected or spending endless hours researching what to do. A lot of people get so stressed over their vacations that they need another vacation just to recover.
What would it be like if you were to have a seamless, stress free travel experience that is all encompassing? Is it really possible to have one single solution that takes care of mobile phone connectivity, internet, foreign exchange conversion, information, tickets, transport, and access to great events and attractions?
TripAlly to the rescue
Not so long ago Cointelegraph had featured TripAlly, who were just about to launch their initial coin offering (ICO). TripAlly is a service that wants to serve a death knell to international roaming, as it is expensive and puts you at the mercy of your mobile phone company. Other alternatives to roaming like swapping SIM cards for local providers and using a pocket wi-fi or hotspot service involve inconveniences as well.
Local SIM cards, while cost effective, also disconnect you from your home network and make you miss out on communicating with friends and work. Pocket wi-fi services are often expensive and involve renting. They also make it difficult to share data with family or friends that you are travelling with. TripAlly, on the other hand, wants to provide mobile internet without borders and without ever having to fumble around with SIM cards. They will provide their service as a mobile application that will allow you to access foreign mobile networks for data. Launch will commence in South-East Asian countries such as Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Malaysia.
Tourist to local in minutes
TripAlly goes way beyond being just another Internet app. What differentiates a good trip from a great trip is access to quality information and events. TripAlly is trying to help travellers transform from tourists to locals in minutes, just as they land in a new country. Recently, TripAlly announced a major new title sponsorship deal with Full Metal Dojo for their upcoming event called FMD15: Come Out to Play, powered by TripAlly at Insanity Nightclub, Bangkok, Thailand.
The Halloween weekend event was themed after the classic 1979 film, ‘The Warriors’. The tie up with Full Metal Dojo, which is Thailand’s leading Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) organization, is just a highlight of what is possible, once services fully roll out. The sponsorship will also allow TripAlly’s platform to reach to a larger audience. CEO Aleksey Gordienko of TripAlly, reflecting on the deal, says:
“We are happy to provide a professional platform for talented MMA fighters and their fans. We believe that cooperation with Full Metal Dojo will bring international exposure to regional MMA fighters, and promote Thailand as a hub for the best MMA gyms and events in the Southeast Asia region.”
Key is acceptance
TripAlly is riding the wave of decentralization that has swept the globe. The world is now full of opportunities for those that dare to take the first step. Tokenization has turned the world into one massive stock exchange. ICOs have been such a success in 2017 that they have managed to raise $1.3 bln for startups as of July this year. We can definitely say that they are redefining what capitalism is and its very essence.
However, the problem with tokens and cryptocurrencies has been a lack of widescale acceptance on the street level. Even Bitcoin, which is one of the most well known and established currencies, faces an uphill battle when it comes to how you can use it in daily life. What TripAlly have going for them is that they are working hard to bring acceptance to their tokens. We were told that TripAlly’s ALLY token has wider acceptance in Bangkok than both Bitcoin and Ether. The process of acceptance takes hard work and TripAlly are already training staff at hundreds of venues to start accepting the token on the ground. They also tell us that the list of venues that accept ALLY is constantly growing.
Bridging the gap between worlds
TripAlly has identified a key problem area that plagues the proliferation of digital tokens and currencies. It is working to bridge the transition between online and offline behaviour in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. It is not only travellers that will be able to take advantage of ALLY tokens and the TripAlly application, even locals will be able to use these tokens in their daily lives as well. Then again, there is no specific group of venues or businesses that are the chief beneficiaries of the ALLY token.
Any business can build the ALLY token into its till, whether it be a massage parlour, a coffee shop, bar, restaurant or as we discussed earlier, an MMA event. TripAlly is about flexibility and choice both for locals as well as travellers. All locations and venues that accept the ALLY token will have a bright orange sticker on their doors for easier identification.
Becoming part of TripAlly
As of the writing of the article, TripAlly has been in the midst of a successful crowdsale. They have raised 1186.627 ETH and ALLY tokens are still on sale. The ICO is open until November 30, 2017. The initial price for each ALLY token is 0.005 ETH or 200 tokens per 1 ETH. TripAlly have released a whitepaper that carries details on fund allocation, discounts and their future plans.
Each ALLY token provides one day worth of mobile internet on their platform and there are plans to charge at least $3 per day of mobile internet after the ICO period and once the services are launched. Thus there are predictable gains to be made for investors, according to TripAlly. Investors who want to reshape the mobile phone industry and also push wider acceptance of cryptocurrencies in the offline world will be excited by what TripAlly is doing and what the project is all about.
Details about how to invest in the ICO are available on their website. Travellers who want seamless roaming services may also want to explore the idea of investing in a service that already has agreements in place with existing networks to provide coverage in one of the world’s most travelled regions. TripAlly is a crypto project that will get many people excited and may end up being a pioneer in pushing acceptance of the digital economy into the mainstream.