WanderLust

Discover unique stays. Share places worth exploring.

An Airbnb-inspired, full-stack vacation rental listing application built with Node.js, Express, MongoDB, and EJS. Explore stays, search by listing name, filter by category, and share reviews. Registered users can publish and manage their own listings with cloud-hosted photos.

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Contents

• Features
• Tech Stack
• Getting Started
• Available Scripts
• Project Structure
• Routes
• Deployment
• Contributing
• Author and License

Features

• Browse stays: View property photos, descriptions, nightly prices, locations, and owner details.
• Search and filter: Search listing titles without case sensitivity and combine searches with category filters, including a dedicated Trending filter.
• Manage listings: Create listings with photos and categories; edit or delete listings you own.
• Cloud image storage: Upload photos through Multer and Cloudinary, with image cleanup when replacing photos or deleting listings.
• User accounts: Sign up, log in, and log out with Passport-based authentication and MongoDB-backed sessions.
• Reviews and ratings: Leave comments and 1–5 star ratings, and delete your own reviews.
• Price display toggle: Switch listing-card prices between the base nightly rate and a total including the application's configured 18% tax.
• Validation and feedback: Server-side listing and search validation, ownership checks, flash messages, and shared error pages.
• Responsive listing grid: Browse listings in a layout that adapts to screen size.

The current application focuses on listing discovery, publishing, and reviews. Reservations, payments, wishlists, and interactive maps are future enhancements.

Tech Stack

Layer	Technologies
Runtime and server	Node.js 24.12.0, Express 5
Views and styling	EJS, ejs-mate, Bootstrap 5, HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Database	MongoDB, Mongoose
Authentication	Passport, passport-local, passport-local-mongoose
Sessions and messages	express-session, connect-mongo, connect-flash
Image uploads	Multer, Cloudinary, multer-storage-cloudinary
Validation	Joi
Development and testing	Nodemon, Node.js built-in test runner
Hosting	Render, with configuration in render.yaml

The code follows an MVC structure: routes connect requests to controllers, Mongoose models manage application data, and EJS templates render the pages.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 24.12.0, matching package.json, and npm.
• A MongoDB database: MongoDB Atlas or a running local instance.
• A Cloudinary account for listing image uploads.
• Git to clone the repository.

1. Clone and install

git clone https://github.com/prahans/wanderLust.git
cd wanderLust
npm ci

2. Configure the environment

Copy the included .env.example file to .env in the project root:

cp .env.example .env

On Windows, you can copy and rename the file in your editor or file explorer.

Update the values with your own configuration:

PORT=8080
ATLASDB_URL=mongodb+srv://USERNAME:PASSWORD@CLUSTER.mongodb.net/wanderlust?retryWrites=true&w=majority
SECRET=replace-with-a-long-random-secret
CLOUD_NAME=your-cloudinary-cloud-name
CLOUD_API_KEY=your-cloudinary-api-key
CLOUD_API_SECRET=your-cloudinary-api-secret

Variable	Purpose
PORT	Local server port; defaults to 8080 when omitted.
ATLASDB_URL	MongoDB connection string used for application data and sessions.
SECRET	Secret used for session signing and session-store encryption.
CLOUD_NAME	Cloudinary cloud name.
CLOUD_API_KEY	Cloudinary API key.
CLOUD_API_SECRET	Cloudinary API secret.
NODE_ENV	Set to production on the host; leave unset or use development locally.

For a local MongoDB instance, set ATLASDB_URL=mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/wanderlust.

Generate a random session secret with:

node -e "console.log(require('node:crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('hex'))"

Keep .env out of version control. For Atlas, use a database user's credentials, URL-encode special characters in the password, and allow your application's network access in the Atlas IP access list.

3. Start the application

npm run dev

Open http://localhost:8080/listings, or use your configured port. The server starts listening after MongoDB connects successfully.

Create an account through Sign up, then add your first listing with a photo. An empty database is supported; seeding is optional.

Optional: sample data

The repository includes init/data.js and init/index.js for development data.

Destructive operation: The current initialization script deletes all listings in the local wanderlust database before inserting sample data. It uses a hard-coded local database URL and owner ID, independently of ATLASDB_URL.

Before using it, inspect init/index.js, confirm the target is a disposable development database, and replace the owner ID with a valid user ID from that database. Then run:

node init/index.js

Do not use this script as a production build or startup command.

Available Scripts

Command	Description
npm run dev	Start app.js with Nodemon for automatic restarts during development.
npm start	Start the application with node app.js.
npm test	Run the test suite with node --test.

Tests are located in tests/ and cover listing behavior, routes, validation, search, category forms, the tax display, and deployment behavior.

Project Structure

Path	Responsibility
app.js	Application setup, database connection, sessions, authentication, and server startup.
controllers/	Listing, review, and user request handlers.
models/	Mongoose models for listings, reviews, and users.
routes/	Express routes for listings, reviews, and authentication.
views/	EJS pages, shared layouts, and reusable partials.
public/	Static stylesheets and browser JavaScript.
middleware.js	Authentication, ownership checks, and listing validation.
schema.js	Joi schemas for request validation.
cloudConfig.js	Cloudinary configuration and upload storage.
utils/	Error handling, asynchronous helpers, and listing categories.
init/	Sample data and the development initialization script.
tests/	Automated tests using Node.js's built-in test runner.
.env.example	Environment configuration template.
render.yaml	Render service configuration.

Routes

These are server-rendered application routes; most return HTML or redirects.

Method	Route	Purpose
GET	/	Redirect to /listings.
GET	/listings	Browse listings; accepts search and category query parameters.
GET	/listings/new	Show the listing creation form; login required.
POST	/listings	Create a listing with an uploaded image; login required.
GET	/listings/:id	View listing details and reviews.
GET	/listings/:id/edit	Show the edit form; owner only.
PUT	/listings/:id	Update a listing; owner only.
DELETE	/listings/:id	Delete a listing; owner only.
POST	/listings/:id/reviews	Add a review; login required.
DELETE	/listings/:id/reviews/:reviewId	Delete a review; review author only.
GET, POST	/signup	Show the signup form or register an account.
GET, POST	/login	Show the login form or authenticate a user.
GET	/logout	Log out of the current session.
GET	/health	Return database connection health as JSON.

HTML forms use method-override with the _method query parameter for PUT and DELETE requests.

Deployment

The project includes a Render Blueprint configuration in render.yaml.

1. Connect the repository to Render and create a service using the included Blueprint.
2. Supply ATLASDB_URL, CLOUD_NAME, CLOUD_API_KEY, and CLOUD_API_SECRET when configuring the service. The Blueprint sets NODE_ENV=production and generates SECRET.
3. Allow the service's outbound IP ranges in your MongoDB Atlas IP access list.
4. Deploy, then verify /listings and /health on the service URL.

For a manually configured Render Web Service, use:

Setting	Value
Runtime	Node
Build command	npm ci
Start command	npm start
Health check path	/health
Environment	NODE_ENV=production, database and Cloudinary values, and a stable random SECRET

Render supplies the service port. In production, the application reads environment variables from the host rather than loading .env, trusts the reverse proxy, and enables secure session cookies.

The health endpoint returns HTTP 200 with {"status":"ok"} when MongoDB is connected, or HTTP 503 with {"status":"unavailable"} when it is disconnected after startup. If the initial database connection fails, the application exits before accepting requests.

Contributing

Contributions and bug reports are welcome.

1. Fork the repository and create a focused branch.
2. Make your changes and add or update tests where appropriate.
3. Run npm test and check the affected application flow locally.
4. Open a pull request describing the change and how you verified it.

For bug reports, include steps to reproduce, expected behavior, and relevant error messages. Remove credentials and other secrets before sharing logs.

Author and License

Created by Prahan Panuhar — @prahans.

The project declares ISC licensing in package.json.

WanderLust is an educational project inspired by Airbnb and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Airbnb.