FAQ

Questions people actually ask about planning group trips

Straight answers — including the ones where the honest answer is “TripRelay doesn’t do that, use something else.” For deeper reading, see the guides and our honest app comparisons.

What TripRelay is

What is TripRelay?
TripRelay is a free group trip planning app that lets friends vote on destinations, restaurants, and activities, then automatically turns the group’s choices into a shared itinerary. One person creates a trip room and shares a link; everyone else joins without creating an account, swipes to vote on candidate places, and the group’s results become a day-by-day plan plus a shareable trip teaser.
Is TripRelay free?
Yes. TripRelay is free for travelers — creating rooms, inviting friends, voting, and generating itineraries don’t cost anything. TripRelay earns money through the Viator partner program when travelers book recommended tours (which never changes the price you pay) and through advertising plans for businesses.
Does TripRelay work on iPhone and Android?
TripRelay is a web app that works in the browser on any phone or computer — there’s nothing to install. There are no native App Store or Google Play apps today; the mobile browser experience is the product’s primary focus.
How is TripRelay different from Wanderlog or TripIt?
Wanderlog is the stronger choice for map-based itinerary building and route optimization, and TripIt is the best tool for organizing bookings you have already made. TripRelay covers the phase those tools skip: getting the group to agree. Friends vote on places without creating accounts, and the itinerary is generated from the votes instead of assembled by hand. See our honest head-to-head comparisons at triprelay.app/vs.

Planning with your group

Is there a trip planner where friends can vote?
Yes — TripRelay is built entirely around voting. Everyone in the trip room swipes through candidate places with four levels of intent: up for super yes, right for yes, left for no, down for opt out. The group’s combined votes decide what makes the itinerary. Troupe (a free app by JetBlue Travel Products) also offers group polls on dates and destinations.
Can friends vote on restaurants and activities, not just the destination?
Yes. In TripRelay the group votes on specific places — restaurants, activities, landmarks, neighborhoods — inside the chosen destination. That per-place voting is what makes the generated itinerary reflect what the group actually wants to do, not just where it wants to go.
Do my friends need to create accounts to help plan?
No. Friends join a TripRelay room from a shared link and vote without creating an account. This matters more than it sounds: in apps that require everyone to sign up, a chunk of the group typically never participates. Creating a room (as the organizer) does use an account.
How do you plan a vacation when nobody can agree?
Separate the discussion from the decision. Shortlist a small set of options (3–5 destinations, 15–30 places), have everyone vote privately instead of debating in the chat, and treat the vote as final. Voting surfaces quiet people’s preferences that a group chat buries, and intent levels (must-do vs. fine vs. opt-out) matter more than simple yes/no. TripRelay automates exactly this flow and then generates the itinerary from the results.
How do you build an itinerary everyone agrees on?
Build it from collected preferences instead of negotiating it line by line. Once everyone has voted on candidate places, sequencing them into days is a logistics problem — grouping by geography, balancing pace, slotting meals — which software does faster than a group chat. TripRelay generates a day-by-day draft from the group’s votes in under a minute; the group then reacts to a concrete plan instead of a blank page.
What’s better than a group chat for planning a trip?
Group chats are good for discussing trips; they’re bad at closing decisions — threads bury choices and whoever types fastest wins. Anything that adds structure helps: a shared doc with a deadline, a poll, or a purpose-built planner. A voting-based tool like TripRelay closes each decision explicitly and turns the results into an itinerary, which is the part chat can never do.
Can I plan a multi-city trip with a group?
Yes. TripRelay supports multi-city trips — the generated itinerary is segmented per city with travel between them accounted for in the schedule.
Can I plan a solo trip with TripRelay?
Yes. Solo mode works the same way without the group: pick a destination and dates, react to candidate places, and generate a personal day-by-day itinerary. TripRelay is group-first, but solo planning is fully supported.

What TripRelay doesn’t do

Does TripRelay book flights, hotels, or activities?
No. TripRelay plans the trip — it doesn’t book any part of it. For flights and stays, use whatever you already trust (Google Flights, Skyscanner, Airbnb, Booking.com). For tours and activities, TripRelay surfaces relevant Viator options you book on Viator’s site.
Does TripRelay split expenses?
No. For tracking who owes whom, Splitwise is the best tool in the category and pairs naturally with TripRelay: plan and vote in TripRelay, run the money in Splitwise.
Does TripRelay send text-message reminders?
No. Notifications today are in-app and email. There is no SMS integration.

How it works

How does the swipe voting work?
Each candidate place appears as a card. Swipe up for super yes (a must-do), right for yes, left for no, and down for opt out — meaning "I’ll skip this one, but the group should go." Opt-outs are the quiet hero: they let the plan flex per person instead of forcing every activity on everyone. The itinerary generator weighs super-yeses heavily and avoids places the group voted down.
How does TripRelay generate the itinerary?
After voting, TripRelay turns the group’s results into a day-by-day schedule: it selects the places the group actually wanted, clusters them geographically, sequences days with realistic pacing, and slots in meals. Generation takes under a minute, and if the automated planner ever fails, a fallback still builds a sensible draft from the votes. You can regenerate or adjust before finalizing.
What is a TripTeaser?
A shareable, cinematic preview of the finished trip — destination highlights, day count, and the plan’s best moments — designed to get the group excited and easy to share. Anyone who opens a shared teaser can view it without an account.
How does TripRelay make money?
Two ways, both disclosed: a commission from the Viator partner program when travelers book recommended tours (this never changes your price and never influences which tours are shown), and paid advertising plans for businesses ($10–$50 per month) that want visibility with groups planning trips to their city. The traveler product is free.