Trekking Buddies Nepal – Making Trekking Friends


This page will briefly explain how the Making Trekking Friends and Requesting of Friends process works with the Community Forums and chat feature.

I am an almost full-time trekker and struggle to find trekking companions in Nepal each year. I have tended to use paper post-it notes in caffe’s in Kathmandu and Pokhara in the past but wanted a better solution. So I created the Friend/Tokens with Community Forum features to help me (and others) connect with trekkers interested in buddying up.

The Forum has specific sections (Topics) for Trekkers to post their availability by Nepal region. They are discouraged from entering personal data (phone numbers, email, etc) in the post (input field is validated).

Post Users may delete their own posts anytime.

Post Users can also ignore/reject ‘Friend Requesters (black list).

Other users that wish to discuss buddying up can respond by sending the poster a Friend Request by tapping the Post. Users may make as many Friend Requests as they like to other users.

However, Users can only accept 5 Friend Requests themselves. Each acceptance will use a token (consume). This is to prevent the app from turning into a ‘dating app’ or that kind of mentality becoming prevalent.

Post User may tap their own post and Accept the Friend Request (or un-Friend a friend).

Once two Users become friends they may chat in a Chat room to work out logistics if they want to move forward with a joint trek in Nepal.

How Does the Process Work:

Post User gets a notice on Home screen if Friend Requests are outstanding. Post User goes to his Post in the Forum or goes to the ‘Friends & Chat’ menu/scene. Post User accepts the ‘Friend Request’. Then opens the Chat Feature and sends a chat line (150 characters).

Request User gets a notice of ‘Friendship Accepted’ and visits the ‘Friends & Chat’ menu and opens the Chat Feature where a list of Friends is shown. Request User picks a Friend and opens the Chat window to read any new chats and reply (Pick an existing Conversation scene).

The above process can be shortened by using the drop-down list attached to a Post (discussed above).

Note that the chats do not update in real-time (this is not WhatsApp). The user must tap the refresh button to fetch an update from the server.

Server Back-end Notes:

Posts and chats greater than 30 days will also be deleted automatically.

Back to Trekking Nepal page.

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