🌍 Wonderlust

AI-Powered Full-Stack Hotel Booking Platform

A scalable, production-ready MERN stack application featuring secure authentication, property management, and an integrated AI Smart Travel Assistant.

🌐 Live Demo · 💻 Source Code

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✨ Overview

Wonderlust goes beyond a traditional hotel booking site by integrating a Smart AI Travel Assistant. Users can explore, manage hotel listings, and seamlessly generate personalized travel itineraries using Google Gemini AI.

Built with modern web development practices, it showcases a robust backend architecture, RESTful API design, secure authentication, and a responsive frontend. This project is designed to be recruiter-friendly, highlighting clean code organization and real-world application workflows.

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🚀 Key Features

🤖 Smart AI Travel Assistant (NEW!)

• Personalized Itineraries: Generate day-wise trip plans powered by Google Gemini AI.
• Budget-Aware & Type-Specific: Get recommendations tailored to your budget and travel style.
• Local Insights: Discover nearby attractions, local food recommendations, and travel tips.
• Export & Share: Download itineraries as PDFs or copy them to the clipboard effortlessly.
• Beautiful Responsive UI: Built to give a smooth AI conversation experience.

🏨 Comprehensive Hotel Listings

• Property Management: Full CRUD operations for listings (Create, Edit, Delete).
• Interactive Maps: Real-time location integration using Mapbox API.
• Cloud Storage: Optimized image uploading and management via Cloudinary.
• Smart Filtering: Destination search and category-based dynamic filtering.

🔐 Security & Authentication

• Secure Access: Session-based authentication using Passport.js.
• Data Protection: Secure password hashing and route authorization.
• Validation: Robust server-side input validation using Joi.

⭐ User Engagement

• Review System: Users can leave ratings and reviews on properties.
• Authorization: Only authorized users can edit their listings or delete their reviews.

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🛠 Tech Stack

Frontend:

Backend:

Database & Cloud:

APIs:

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💻 Getting Started

Follow these steps to run the project locally.

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v18 or higher)
• MongoDB (Local or Atlas)
• Cloudinary Account
• Mapbox Account
• Google Gemini API Key

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/Shweta-rani05/wonderlust-mern.git
   cd wonderlust-mern

2. Install dependencies:

   npm install

3. Set up Environment Variables: Create a .env file in the root directory and add your credentials:

   ATLASDB_URL=<your-mongodb-connection-string>
   SECRET=<your-session-secret>
   CLOUDINARY_CLOUD_NAME=<your-cloudinary-cloud-name>
   CLOUDINARY_KEY=<your-cloudinary-api-key>
   CLOUDINARY_SECRET=<your-cloudinary-api-secret>
   MAP_TOKEN=<your-mapbox-api-key>
   GEMINI_API_KEY=<your-google-gemini-api-key>

4. Run the application:

   # Development mode (with nodemon)
   npm run dev
   
   # Or standard execution
   npm start

5. Access the app: Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.

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📂 Architecture & Design

The application follows the MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern to ensure clean separation of concerns:

• Models: Mongoose schemas defining MongoDB collections.
• Views: EJS templates for dynamic frontend rendering.
• Controllers: Business logic handling data flow between Models and Views.
• Routes: RESTful endpoints logically grouped by feature.
• Middlewares: Reusable logic for authentication, validation, and error handling.
• Services: Dedicated modules for external API integrations (e.g., Gemini AI).

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🔮 Future Enhancements

• Fully-functional Booking & Payment Gateway (Stripe/Razorpay)
• Date Availability Calendar
• User Wishlists
• Real-time Email & In-App Notifications

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👩‍💻 Author

Shweta Rani

• B.Tech Computer Science Engineering
• GitHub: @Shweta-rani05

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⭐ Support

If you found this project helpful or interesting, please consider giving it a ⭐ on GitHub!