A lot of startups are working on combining travel and social media. We dove into the social travel ocean and found no less than 32 startups.

Most of them are doing some really exciting stuff. We really like the concept of “social flying” and would therefor like to push Planely and Uppward. 

Planely is a Copenhagen based startup, founded by Nick Martin, Paul Kirkaas and Gorm Casper. The service is simple; you enter your flight and then Planely will show you what other users will be at the same departure airport/same flight and/or the same arriving airport as you. If you like, you can connect beforehand.

You can also add your Facebook or LinkedIn account to find your contacts. 

Uppward is a startup co-founded by Nathan T. Wright, James Eliason, Nate Becker and Ben Sinclair. It’s an iPhone app that allows you to discover who else is flying with you. You can aslo earn miles and rewards, regardless of wich airline you choose.

What services like these do, is ensuring that you don’t miss out on likeminded people or business contacts when anyways e.g. waiting in the same airport lounge. No lotto this time. Pretty cool.

Of course, all of this depends on enough people signing up for these services and most importantly if the person you find interesting actually is up for having that cup of coffee with you…