Creators of new app want to help you connect with others and do something fun in 2021
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IDAHO FALLS – The creators of a new app are inviting you to meet new people and create your own adventures.
Idaho Falls residents Mandi Hamilton and R.D. Sortor co-created the Get Along app, a social platform designed to help you make new friends while you’re traveling. It’s slated to launch in January.
“Let’s say you’re new to Idaho Falls … and you want to go out hiking, snow machining or snowboarding,” Sortor tells EastIdahoNews.com. “You get on the app and it will automatically take you to your local area, populate a map of Idaho Falls with all the Idaho Falls users around you.”
From there, you can enter your own search parameters. For example, if you want to connect with a married couple in their 30s living in Idaho Falls, Sortor says the app will identify people in that criteria and you can connect with them for whatever activity you’re planning to do.
The app also works outside of eastern Idaho.
If you’re traveling and want a travel buddy, the app also allows you to find people in the area where you’ll be going.
“The whole idea behind it is to get people in this healthy lifestyle,” Hamilton says. “We spend too much time on social media and base our lives around technology. Our motto is ‘connect to disconnect.’ We want people to get on and use the app to meet new people, find local activities … and disconnect from the modern world we live in.”
Prior to creating the app, Sortor served in the military for eight years. He then got a job at the Idaho National Laboratory, where he met Hamilton. They both love traveling and it was that common interest that inspired a partnership for this project.
A recent trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico is one trip in particular that first sparked the idea for Sortor.
“The deep-sea fishing there is phenomenal. It’s expensive as well,” he says. “The last time I was there, I sat on the beach looking at all the people there saying ‘Gosh, I can’t be the only person here that wants to go fishing.'”
He also recalls a trip he took to Bogota, Colombia last year. He didn’t know any Spanish and spent hours in his hotel practicing basic words and phrases just to get by.
Having the app would’ve allowed him to find people near him that spoke English and shared similar interests, he says.
Sortor recently stepped down from his INL job, but Hamilton still works there. She says she’s always wanted to travel the world and she’s hoping this venture will give her the opportunity to do that.
Though the app hasn’t officially launched, Sortor says there’s already a lot of positive buzz about it in the community. Its social media pages are gaining a following and a promotional video is currently being played at the Paramount Theater in Idaho Falls. Watch it in the video player above.
They’re hoping that others are as excited about the app as they are.
“Too many people … spend a lot of time on their phones and they live vicariously through other people and struggle to find what really makes them happy,” says Sortor. “Get on the app, find somebody to do something with or share an interest with and get off your phone and go do it.”
“We’re all people just trying to make it through and enjoy our lives,” Hamilton adds. “Everybody could use a little more fun.”
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