The Brief
A German-language Mongolia travel operator whose site simply had to never break again. We rebuilt it from scratch as a dependency-free custom application.
The client's existing site ran on a nulled Beaver-Builder WordPress that broke on a plugin update and could not be repaired. They needed their site back, working, and resilient — robustness was the entire point.
What We Did
Rather than patch a fragile stack, we rebuilt on custom PHP 8 + MariaDB with zero third-party dependencies — no framework, no Composer, no plugins. A locked-down, content-only admin panel, rolling automatic backups, graceful error handling, and self-hosted fonts and maps for full DSGVO compliance.
We migrated all content from the old site (15 tours, testimonials, blog posts and pages), added per-tour interactive route maps, and shipped a moderated guestbook. Two design directions were explored — a bold first iteration, then the refined, friendly “Steppenhimmel” look now live.
- Zero-dependency custom PHP 8 + MariaDB — nothing to break on a plugin update
- Self-hosted fonts and Leaflet maps (DSGVO — no external CDN calls)
- Per-tour route maps with numbered waypoints (Leaflet + OpenStreetMap)
- Locked-down content-only admin with rolling automatic backups
- Full content migration from the old site; German-first UX
Then & Now
We explored two design directions. The first bold iteration is preserved below as a static archive; the refined version is live today.
First Iteration
Our bold first design direction, preserved as a browsable static demo.
Explore