🌍 Wanderlust

Wanderlust is a full-stack web application inspired by listing and review platforms. It is built to demonstrate real-world authentication, authorization, and ownership-based access control using Node.js, Express, MongoDB, and EJS.

The project focuses on secure CRUD operations, where users can only modify the data they own.

📌 What is this project?

Wanderlust allows users to:

• Create an account and log in
• Add listings (with price, location, description, etc.)
• View listings created by other users
• Add reviews to listings
• Securely edit or delete only their own listings
• Securely delete only the reviews they authored

The application enforces strict authorization rules:

• Only the listing owner can edit or delete a listing
• Only the review author can delete a review
• Unauthorized users are blocked both at the UI level and the backend level

This project is ideal for learning how authentication and authorization are handled in real production applications.

✨ Features

• User authentication (signup, login, logout)
• Session-based authentication using Passport.js
• Ownership-based authorization for listings
• Author-based authorization for reviews
• RESTful routing
• Server-side validation with Joi
• Flash messages for user feedback
• MongoDB relationships using Mongoose populate
• Clean MVC folder structure
• Bootstrap-based UI

🛠 Tech Stack

• Backend: Node.js, Express.js
• Database: MongoDB, Mongoose
• Authentication: Passport.js, passport-local-mongoose
• Templating Engine: EJS, EJS-Mate
• Validation: Joi
• Styling: Bootstrap

📂 Project Structure (Overview)

wanderlust/
│
├── models/        # Mongoose schemas (User, Listing, Review)
├── routes/        # Express routes (listings, reviews, users)
├── middleware/    # Custom authentication & authorization middleware
├── views/         # EJS templates
├── public/        # Static files (CSS, images)
├── utils/         # Error handling utilities
├── app.js         # Main application file
└── package.json

⚙️ How to Set Up Locally

Follow these steps to run the project on your local machine.

1️⃣ Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/your-username/wanderlust.git
cd wanderlust

2️⃣ Install Dependencies

Make sure you have Node.js installed.

npm install

3️⃣ Start MongoDB

Ensure MongoDB is running locally.

mongod

Default connection used:

mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/wanderlust

4️⃣ (Optional) Seed Initial Data

If you have seed data:

node init/index.js

5️⃣ Run the Application

nodemon app.js

or

node app.js

6️⃣ Open in Browser

http://localhost:8080

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to fork the repository and submit a pull request.

📜 License

This project is for learning and educational purposes.