Escape Brooklyn is a beloved editorial platform that helps New Yorkers escape the city with curated guides to upstate destinations. With 10 years of content, strong SEO rankings, and a loyal following, founder Erin Lindsey had a vision: combine her curated recommendations with a digital platform where users can easily browse them in one system, get all the details that matter and see real-time availability. That information comes from vacation rentals (through AirBnb or other platforms) and boutique hotels (that use several different Property Management Systems (PMS).

But after talking to multiple developers, she was told the idea of combining these different iCals and API's was too complex to pull off. We had to build trust quickly.

I can't pull the trigger without knowing that this works — this is my income.

So, instead of providing our standard project assessment document, we set out to build a working prototype in two days. For free.

The Challenge

The main issue was to find a way to aggregate vacation property availability across multiple channels. Some family-run properties run their own agenda, some are listed on AirBnb and other boutique hotels are connected with a PMS. This gives us easily more than 5 sources of data to work with.

We had to solve:

• Pulling real iCal links from Airbnb-style rentals.
• Connect to Cloudbeds' API sandbox for hotel availability.
• Make a difference between a property with just one 'availability' list (like AirBnb) and hotels where there are more rooms with their own availability.
• Unify all data into a clean, filterable user interface.

And Erin had heard the same thing over an over:

You're not like the fourth person or group that I've been talking to and this is why you do your homework and you talk to different people. But the last guy was just like, 'it's becoming too complex with all of these different APIs.

Our Approach

We built a live proof-of-concept in just a few days:

• Pulled real iCal links from Airbnb-style rentals
• Connected to StaynTouch API sandbox for hotel availability
• Created a function and API that securely runs through CloudFlare Workers
• Built a very crude interface with date pickers
• Proved we can aggregate these sources in a reliable availability checker

This put the client immediately at ease and she pulled the trigger for us to design and build an awesome platform for weekend getaway planning with the most stunning properties in its portfolio.

The app is simple:

Users soak up the eye candy, navigate to a simple search page to select what amenities and type of stay feels right to them, and select their preferred dates.

The system fetches real-time availability for each property, allowing visitors to easily filter out properties. The property details page tells you everything you need to know about this place and provides a simple link to the property's booking page.

All the heavy lifting happens in the background.