Wanderlust: a travel experience sharing platform

The rapid growth of urban infrastructure and digital connectivity has led to an increasing demand for location-based recommendation systems. This paper presents "Wander-Lust", a web-based application aimed at assisting users in discovering, reviewing, and rating local stores and services. The system is designed to bridge the information gap between store owners and consumers by providing a reliable, community-driven review platform. The application architecture follows the MVC pattern and is built using Node.js, Express.js, and MongoDB as the core backend technologies. It utilizes EJS templating for dynamic content rendering and integrates Mapbox API to provide an interactive geographical interface for locating stores. Key functionalities include user authentication, role-based access control (admin, user, store owner), review and rating system, photo uploads, and store management by verified owners. The backend implements secure session handling using connect-mongo, along with data sanitization and validation to prevent common vulnerabilities. The project follows RESTful routing principles, ensuring modularity and scalability. The data layer is managed efficiently with MongoDB, supporting nested structures such as reviews and image metadata. The application has been tested under real-world scenarios to ensure responsiveness.