How to plan a group trip
Dates, budget, and who decides what, settled before anyone books.
Group trips rarely go wrong over the destination. They go wrong over questions nobody asked early: how much, when, who books, and who is paying. Settle those first, in this order, and the trip itself gets easier.
1. Choose one person to hold the plan
Everyone gets a say, but one person keeps the list, collects the answers, and sends out the plan. That person does not make every choice. They make sure there is one current version and that everyone has it.
2. Settle dates and a budget range first
Ask everyone for the dates that work and the most they are comfortable spending. Ask privately if you can, so nobody has to say a number in front of the group. Then plan to the lowest number, not the average. A trip priced for the biggest budget in the group leaves someone stretched or left out.
3. Decide what is shared and what is solo
Lodging and the main transport are usually shared. Meals, extra activities, and shopping are often optional. Agree early on who pays upfront for shared costs and how everyone pays them back, and write it down so nobody has to remember a conversation.
4. Book the few fixed things first
Transport and lodging go first, since everything else depends on them. See what to book ahead for what else sells out. Once something is booked, treat it as fixed and put it at the top of the plan.
5. Collect needs, not just wishes
Ask each person for what they need: dietary needs, mobility limits, a hard stop on a certain day, something they will not do. A need changes the plan, and a wish only adds to it. It is easier to learn these early than at the restaurant.
6. Plan one shared thing a day
Pace the trip to the slowest member of the group. A good rhythm is one planned thing a day that everyone does together, with the rest of the day open, so people can split up for a few hours without anyone feeling left out. See how to pace a trip.
7. Send one version of the plan
When the plan lives in a chat thread, half the group is working from an old message. Send everyone one clean copy, and when something changes, send a new one instead of a patch.
When the free planner is enough, and when Plus helps
The free planner does a lot on its own: it holds your saved links, builds the shape of each day from your pace, writes the request for any AI you use, adds the booking timeline, exports a calendar file, and shares the plan by link. For many trips, that is all you need.
TripDeputy Plus helps the person holding the plan keep one current version: with sync, the same plan is on your phone and your laptop, so the copy you send out is always the latest. It adds:
- A trip email address. Forward links from your own email to your trip, and they land in its saved links.
- The plan filled in for you, by TripDeputy's own AI, so you do not need to copy anything into another assistant. It is still a draft to check.
- Opening hours for the places in your plan, from Google Maps: current hours within a week of your date, typical hours further out, and each result says which.
- Re-plan the day on the road, when something is closed or the weather turns.
- Sync across your devices, and a live calendar link that your calendar app refreshes on its own schedule.
- Booking and on-sale alerts by email, for dates you enter from the seller's own page.
Plus is $5 a month or $39 a year, and you can cancel from your account. Check the pricing page for what is included today.
Put it into practice
Fill in Who is going and Already set in the planner, and put the group's needs in the Must-dos and things to work around box. Then copy a share link on the Export tab. Anyone who opens it gets their own copy of the plan, so changes one person makes do not reach the others. Send a fresh link when something changes. The same tab prints the plan, saves it as a calendar file for each person to import, and copies it for Notion, Google Docs, Sheets, Trello, or Todoist.