Frequently asked questions

In Planning mode anyone can post date ranges and destination ideas as proposals. Everyone in the group rates each one with a 5-star rating, and you can see the average and how many people have weighed in. You can also nudge people who haven't voted yet. When the group has a favorite, the organizer marks it as chosen and the trip locks in those dates and that location.

On the Lodging tab in Planning mode, anyone can paste a listing URL (Airbnb, Vrbo, a hotel page) and the app pulls in a preview. You can add bedrooms, bathrooms, capacity, nightly price, amenities, pros/cons, and photos. The group rates each option so it's clear which one is winning — no more digging through the group chat for that one link someone sent.

On the Budget tab, add line items for anything the group expects to share — lodging, the rental car, groceries, an activity. Each line splits across whoever it applies to (using each member's party size, so families of four count as four), and the app shows everyone's estimated share before anyone commits to booking.

On the Excursions tab, anyone can propose an activity — a hike, a fancy dinner, a museum — as either a simple suggestion or a vote between options. Members RSVP per excursion, and costs can flow into the trip budget or be split between attendees.

Yes. On the More tab each member declares how many people they're bringing (their party — extra adults and kids), how many rooms they need, who they want to share with, whether they're willing to share, and how many of their party participate in cost sharing. The budget split and lodging capacity use these numbers automatically.

On the trip Home page, scroll just below the trip summary card to the "Lodging details" card. Organizers and co-organizers tap it to enter the address, the listing or booking URL, and freehand notes (e.g. "master bedroom reserved for Grandma"). Members see the saved info but can't edit it. The trip-creation wizard also has an optional Lodging step between Dates and Meals.

Once dates and a destination are chosen and the trip's start date is set, the meal planning, attendance, duties, and grocery tabs come alive automatically. You don't have to migrate anything — the same trip, same group, same shared expenses just gain the day-by-day tools.

Yes. The Participants screen (organizer-driven) is where the organizer ticks each member as confirmed attending and reviews party sizes side by side. It's the source of truth for headcounts once invites have settled. Everyone can view it; the organizer drives confirmations.

Both. Group Trip Planner works for any kind of group getaway — a relaxing beach vacation, a family reunion, a ski weekend, a bachelor or bachelorette trip, a camping run. We use "trip" in the app because it covers everything, but vacation planning is exactly what it's built for.

Sign in, then tap “New trip” on your dashboard. Give it a name and date range and pick which meals you're planning (breakfast, lunch, dinner — any combo). You'll get a share link, QR code, and short share code to send to everyone. There's also a lightweight “Plan a trip” entry that creates a planning-status trip from just a name when you want to start collecting date/location proposals first.

Open the trip → More tab → Share. You can copy the link, scan the QR code, use your phone's share sheet, or read out the short share code. Anyone who opens the link and signs in joins the trip automatically — no manual approval needed. The organizer can rotate the link any time to invalidate old invites.

Yes. From the More tab, add a guest for each person who isn't signing in themselves — kids, a partner, a visiting friend. They count toward headcounts and attendance. Each guest has an "Include in cooking/cleanup duty" checkbox, plus an "Exempt" flag for people who should never be assigned (toddlers, elderly relatives).

Organizers and co-organizers get a "Manage guests" panel on the More tab with three tabs: add one person, add a whole family (share one family label), or add on behalf of a member. Managed guests count for headcount, cook portions, groceries, attendance, and duties just like member-owned guests. Use the family label to group people so they show together across the app.

Yes. In the "Manage guests" panel, pick the "On behalf of a member" tab, choose the member, and add the guest. That guest belongs to the member — they can edit or remove it like their own — and the organizer keeps edit rights too. The member sees it in an "Added on your behalf" section on their More tab.

Yes. Organizers and co-organizers can toggle any guest's duty rotation directly from the "Manage guests" panel — no ask/consent flow required. The old "Ask [member]" nudge is still available for member peer-nudges but is no longer required.

Members can set their own exemptions from the More tab — exempt yourself from all duties, or just from specific slots like dinner cleanup or breakfast prep. Auto-fill respects these, but you can still volunteer manually if you change your mind.

Yes. On the Attendance tab tap any meal cell to toggle a person in or out. There are also bulk shortcuts to mark a whole day, a whole meal type across the trip, or a single person in or out everywhere — handy when someone arrives late or leaves early.

Everyone defaults to attending every meal. You manage your own attendance and your own guests' attendance from the Attendance tab. Meal cards, grocery planning, the duty fairness math, and the printed schedule all use the live headcount.

Anyone can sign up for prep or cleanup on a meal, or tap an empty slot to assign someone. The organizer can tap “Auto-fill” to distribute fairly using who's present, who's exempt, and who has done the fewest turns so far. There's also a fairness tally and a “Rebalance” button to even things out mid-trip.

Tap your assignment → “Request swap”. Other members see the open swap and can accept to take it over. You can cancel an open swap any time before someone accepts.

Yes. On the Meals tab the organizer can tag any meal slot as a no-cook night with a label like “Pizza Night” or “Day of Food.” There are one-tap presets for both. No prep sign-up is generated for that slot, manual cook sign-ups are refused, and auto-fill skips it. Cleanup still has a slot by default, but the organizer can also skip cleanup sign-up (handy for Day of Food when everyone pitches in). When a slot is tagged Day of Food, the Meals tab surfaces available leftovers so the group uses them up before departure.

When it's your turn to cook, tap “Start cooking” from the Today tab. You get a full-screen view with the recipe, ingredient checklist, and allergy warnings — and your screen stays awake. When you're done, save how many leftover servings there are and tap “Ping cleanup” to notify the cleanup crew.

After cooking, save the number of leftover servings. Leftovers show up on the Today tab so anyone can mark them eaten, and they appear as an insertion option on the Meals tab so you can plan a meal around them. Day of Food slots surface them automatically.

Yes. On any meal in the Meals tab, tap “Import recipe.” Paste the recipe text and the app parses it into ingredients with amounts and units. Then you review every line — adjust the “cooking for” headcount to scale, uncheck anything you already have, and edit the “buy quantity” the app suggests (it'll suggest “1 jar cardamom” instead of “1/3 tsp,” because that's how you actually shop). Only after you confirm does anything get pushed to the grocery list. AI suggestions always need a quick review.

Add items with a quantity — anyone in the group sees them instantly. Items auto-sort into aisle sections, and any member can manually override an item's category (the manual choice sticks). Tap “Shopping mode” to hide checked items, keep your screen awake, and see who else is shopping at the same time. From the Meals tab, “Send to grocery list” pushes a meal's ingredients straight to the list, automatically skipping anything on your Already-have list.

A collapsible sub-list at the top of the Groceries tab for things you need the moment you arrive — toilet paper, coffee, a first dinner. Each Day One item is either bringing from home (assigned to a member, who can pick it up and drop it) or buy on arrival (part of the first shopping run). Bringing items also appear on the Already-have list so nobody re-buys them. There's a dedicated focused view at /day-one with filter pills (All / Buy / Bringing / Mine), Copy as text, and Print.

The Already-have list (on the Groceries tab) is where you note things you already have at the rental or are bringing from home — salt, oil, the good coffee, whatever. When you push meal ingredients to the grocery list, anything on this list is skipped so nobody buys it twice. You can move items between the grocery list and Already-have any time.

Yes. Any grocery item can be reserved for a specific person (e.g., “the dairy-free milk is for Sam”) or flagged as allergy-safe / dedicated — meaning don't cross-contaminate it. Reserved and dedicated items render with a prominent status line so it's hard to miss, and they're never auto-merged with regular items.

From the More tab, each member can tag their structured allergens (peanuts, dairy, etc.) and diets (vegetarian, gluten-free, etc.), plus add free-text notes for the cook. The app then shows inline warnings on any meal whose ingredients clash with someone present. For extra-critical info, post a note on the Group notes tab and mark it as an Allergy/Safety note — it pins to the Today banner and prints in bold.

Group notes are where you leave messages for everyone — “restaurant booked for Friday,” “Grandma's bringing dessert,” etc. Anyone can reply. Pin a note to keep it at the top and on the Today banner, or flag it as Allergy/Safety to make it impossible to miss. The organizer can also broadcast a short question to everyone via Request feedback — it posts as a pinned note and notifies every member.

Yes — the organizer can turn on Cost Sharing on the Expenses tab. Before logging anything, the group can vote yes/no/maybe on sharing costs at all and opt into specific categories (groceries, lodging, flights, booze) with optional personal caps. Then log receipts (with category, photo, who paid, who it's split between). The app shows everyone's balance and the minimum number of payments to settle up. Your personal balance also appears on the Today tab via the My Balance card.

Yes. From the More tab → Notifications, turn on a morning digest (today's meals + duties) and an evening nudge (tomorrow's unassigned slots and grocery gaps), each at the time you choose. You can mute everything until midnight when you need a break. Cleanup people also get a ping when the cook hits “Done,” and you can opt into browser/mobile push for invites, comments, swap requests, and settlements.

Yes — two of them. The Planning To-Do walks the group through up-front decisions while the trip is in planning mode (invite voters, propose dates and destinations, add lodging, set a budget). Once the trip is active, the Trip Mode To-Do shows on Today — a notebook-style checklist tailored to whether you're the organizer or a member, so nobody forgets to mark attendance, claim a meal, check duties, or print the schedule.

Yes. Open Print from the More tab or the Today header. “Schedule only” gives you a clean fridge-ready meal schedule with headcounts and duties. “Print all” adds dietary notes, pinned/allergy notes, and the grocery list. The Day One list has its own print view too.

Yes. Open the trip you want to copy → More tab → “Duplicate trip”. Pick a new name and start date — meals and ingredients always come along (with dates shifted). You can also choose to copy guests, member dietary settings and exemptions, the grocery list, and the Already-have list. Duties and attendance always start fresh.

Leave vacation removes you from the trip entirely (you can rejoin via the share link). Drop out of trip is a softer option on the More tab that keeps you as a member so you can still see everything, but clears your attendance, exempts you from all prep and cleanup, and removes you from cost sharing — for people who can't attend anymore but still want visibility. The organizer can't drop out of their own trip; they'd delete the trip instead.

Only the organizer can delete the whole trip, from the More tab. Deletion is permanent.

Yes. When two members on the same trip end up with the same display name, the app gently asks the second one to add something distinguishing (a last initial, a nickname). It only changes their per-trip display name — their account name and other trips are untouched. Every attribution surface (groceries, duties, expenses, notes) updates everywhere automatically.

Yes — Group Trip Planner is free for your group's trips and vacations.

Yes. The trip Home page has a compact weather widget for your destination and dates. More than 14 days out it shows historical climate averages so you can pack sensibly; from 14 days out through 5 days after the trip ends it switches to the live forecast. Temperatures use °F or °C based on each member's preference (Account settings → Temperature unit), defaulting to °F.

There's PackSmarter, a per-person packing checklist built into the trip. Open the Packing tab (or /v/{id}/packing) and you get a list tailored to your trip's length, destination, weather, and activities. Your list is private by default — nobody else sees what you've packed or how far along you are. When you're ready to leave, flip the "I'm ready to go" toggle and your name shows up in a shared "Who is ready" readout so the group can see who's still packing without exposing item-level detail. Newly added items always default to unchecked, so nothing appears already packed. Each item shows an estimated weight (a `~` prefix means it's an estimate, not something you've confirmed) — tap the weight pill to enter the real number, and the estimate re-computes automatically if you rename the item. There's also a trip-level Packing Notes area between the mode toggle and your first category for reminders ("blue sneakers, not white"). PackSmarter also runs standalone at packsmarter.app for trips outside this app; the first time you use it (and any time the Terms of Service version bumps) a one-time acceptance modal will appear.

It's an estimate, not a measurement — the card is literally titled "Estimated Bag Weight" for that reason. Each item's weight comes from a keyword lookup (e.g. Jeans ≈ 650g, T-shirt ≈ 180g) with a category fallback, and unconfirmed weights show a `~` prefix. Tap the weight pill on any row to enter the actual weight — that marks it as confirmed and locks it against auto re-estimates. In Flying and Cruise modes the progress bar turns amber at 70% and red at 90% of the airline/cruise limit, and a disclaimer under the bar reminds you to weigh the actual bag on a real scale before travel. Switching to Return Mode surfaces a one-time reminder to do exactly that. Driving mode hides the limit since there isn't one. Anything you write in Packing Notes is for reference only and is never added to the weight total.

Two places, depending on how you think about it. The Gear tab (on the Groceries page and as its own /v/{id}/gear page) is the group's coordination list — who's bringing the tent, who's covering the cooler, who claimed the speaker. Anyone can add, claim, or check off items, and a Suggestions panel pre-fills common trip gear. Inside PackSmarter's embedded mode there's also a Group Gear tab, which is the packing-mode view of that same idea — jointly-owned items being brought on the trip.

Yes. The Week-at-a-Glance dinners view scrolls horizontally through every dinner in the trip, grouped into 7-day week sections with headcounts, cook, and cleanup. The current day is highlighted and there's a jump-to-current-week control. It also has a landscape print stylesheet (7 days per page) that's perfect for the fridge.