Every travel creator has the same problem. You have hundreds of recommendations in your head, in your camera roll, and in your DMs. People keep asking for them. But a saved Instagram highlight is not a product, and a Google Sheet is not something anyone will pay for.

Travel Like Jess just solved this in a way worth copying. Her Northeast Guide is a set of maps covering playgrounds, dining and entertainment, unique attractions, NYC, and summer activities. The free maps are right there on the page. Joining unlocks the full Northeast Guide, which brings every destination into one searchable map with advanced filters, member savings, and new discoveries added all year.

That structure is the whole lesson. Here is how it works and how to build your own.

Start With Free Maps That People Can Find

The free maps are not a giveaway. They are the front door.

When someone searches for playgrounds in Connecticut or the best places to eat near a specific town, a public, well organized map is something they can actually use on their phone while standing on a sidewalk. That is very different from a blog post they have to scroll through in a parking lot.

Free maps do three jobs at once. They prove your recommendations are good. They give people a reason to share your link. And they give you a natural place to ask someone to join before they go deeper.

Pick two or three themes you are known for and make those free. If you are the playground person, the playground map is free. That is your calling card.

Decide What Goes Behind the Gate

The unlocked version has to be worth more than the sum of the free maps, or people will use the free ones and move on.

Travel Like Jess does this by changing the format, not just adding more pins. The free maps are separate and thematic. The full guide is one searchable map with filters across everything. If you are planning a weekend and you want a playground, lunch, and a rainy day backup within twenty minutes of each other, the unlocked version answers that in one place. The free version cannot.

A few things that reliably belong behind a gate:

• Everything in one searchable place instead of split across themes
• Filters that match how people actually plan, like drive time, age range, indoor or outdoor, price
• Discounts you negotiated with businesses on your list
• New additions throughout the year, so membership stays alive instead of being a one time download

That last one matters more than people expect. A membership someone buys once and never opens again does not renew. A map that gets better every month does.

Bring Local Businesses Into the Deal

Member savings are the piece most creators skip, and they are the easiest to get.

Local businesses want to reach exactly the audience you have already gathered. A coffee shop offering your members ten percent off is not doing you a favor. They are buying access to a warm, local, ready to spend audience for free. Ask ten businesses on your map. Some will say yes right away.

Once a few are in, the offer to the next round of businesses gets easier, and your guide gets more valuable without you adding a single new pin.

How to Build the Same Thing With a Program

What Jess built is called a program in Proxi. A program is a shared home for your maps, directories, events, and more.

It brings your maps, directories, event calendars, and links together on one page, so you have a single link you can put anywhere. In your bio. In a newsletter. On a QR code. Instead of sending people five different links and hoping they keep track, you send one.

Add Your Content, Then Mark Each Piece Free or Members

Inside the program you add a map, a directory, an event group, a link, an information block, or a benefit. Benefits are where those business discounts live, sitting right alongside your maps so people can see what they are getting.

Every item gets one toggle: free or members. Free items show on the join page for everyone. Members items unlock after someone joins. That single toggle is how you run a free tier and a paid tier from one page instead of maintaining two separate products.

Pick One Gate for the Whole Program

One gate covers everything inside, and joining once unlocks every members-only item. You have four choices:

• Open, so anyone with the link sees everything
• Email required, where visitors enter an email to join
• Password, for sharing with a specific group
• Paid membership, where people pay to join and unlock everything

You can start open, switch to email when you want to build a list, and move to paid when the content is worth charging for. People are not logging in over and over or hunting for the link you sent in March.

Ask the Right Questions at the Door

The registration form is yours to write. You set the public title, the intro text, the button copy, and the success message, so joining feels like part of your brand instead of a generic signup.

Then you choose the questions. Name and email are the basics, but zip code, phone number, or how did you hear about us are one click to add, and the answers land on the contact record. Ask for zip code and you learn where your audience actually lives, which is exactly what you need when you go sell a business on sponsoring your guide.

Watch It Add Up

The members view shows paid members, total collected, and net earned after fees, alongside everyone who joined for free. You can export the whole list to CSV, and you can message your members straight from the program.

Everyone who joins lands in your audiences too, so you are building a list at the same time you are building a product. The people who joined to get your maps are the same people you can reach when you add new spots.

Keep It Local and Keep It Current

The strongest version of this is narrow. A guide to the entire Northeast is broad, but the maps inside it are specific. Playgrounds. Ice cream. Rainy day plans. That specificity is what makes someone hand over an email or a card, because it feels like it was made for their actual weekend.

Set a rhythm you can keep. Once a month, add five new spots and tell your members what changed. That habit is what turns a one time signup into something people stay subscribed to.

What to Do This Week

Pick your themes and build the maps. Add them to a program. Mark two free and the rest members only. Choose your gate. Ask five businesses for a discount and add them as benefits. Then share the one link.

You already did the hard part, which was going everywhere and paying attention. The rest is packaging.

If you want to see how this looks in practice, take a look at the Travel Like Jess Northeast Guide, then build your own program in Proxi.