Wander the world with Instagram pen pals

Came across these guys last week and just getting to this now but I love the idea behind Wander, a new iPhone app that uses Instagram's API to connect people around the world through photographs.

“What Wander does is create impossible connections with people who you would never meet, allowing users to explore life in other countries in an interactive, meaningful way” says Darien Brown, CEO of Wander - via Mashable

I love the idea of facilitating more intimate, one-to-one connections (and maybe even friendships) between people internationally, while introducing us to new perspectives in seeing the world through someone else's eyes. 

Here's how it works:

Download the free app from Apple's App store and create an account (with you name, birthday, location and an interesting fact about yourself).

Wander will match you with a 'partner' from somewhere else in the world (my first partner is Mikhail, from Moscow) and you're both interested you will be paired together for a week.

Each day Wander will send you 'missions' to complete in order to help share your lives and surroundings. For example, "show your partner how you got to work today" or "if you eat out today share a photo of the menu and what you ordered".

Apparently Wander has a built-in translator, so thankfully I won't have to learn Russian..! I just signed up today so I'lll update this post in about a week and let you know how my new Russian friend and I get along.

In addition to modernizing the idea of a pen pals, I can see this being huge for travel.  Imagine you were planning a trip to Cape Town or Berlin or wherever, and had a bunch of guide books and blogs to read but didn't actually know anyone in your destination city. It would be super cool to tap into some type of location-based Wander library and check out spots that locals frequent (with the potential to connect once  you're there). Some people use sites like A Small World to connect with people in new cities but Wander could bring an element of personal and artistic context and panache to the experience.

What do you think of this new app? Will you Wander??