--- url: https://vacationist.app/ title: Group Trip Planner - Vote & Split Expenses | Vacationist description: Plan group trips together: vote on activities, split travel expenses, and share packing lists. Free, and no account needed to join. lang: en updated: 2026-09-24 --- # Plan trips together, effortlessly. Vacationist is a free group trip planning app for iOS, Android, and web that lets a group vote on activities, split travel expenses, and share packing and shopping lists together - no account required to join. **TL;DR:** Vacationist is free, has no ads, and encrypts travel documents with AES-256. Receipts attach to expenses and boarding passes to flights, kept private to your trip. It's built in Switzerland, and anyone can join a trip via a single link without creating an account. Available today on iOS, Android, and the web. ## Everything your group needs, nothing it doesn't. ### Vote on activities Suggest ideas and let the group decide - from "must do" to "group blocker". The best options rise naturally, with no endless debates. ### Split expenses fairly Log every cost with a category and a receipt attached, split it equally or by custom amounts, and see a live breakdown of who owes what - and what the trip cost you, per trip and across every trip you've taken. ### Real-time shared lists Shopping lists, packing checklists - anything the group tracks. Everyone adds and checks off items simultaneously, in real time. ### Transfers, flights & tickets Vote on flights, manage rental cars and public transport, assign who rides with whom, and keep every boarding pass and ticket attached to the trip. ### Encrypted travel documents Passport and ID details encrypted at rest and protected by biometric authentication. Share temporary organiser access and revoke it any time. ### Vacation tracker & calendar A visual timeline of all planned activities, transfers, and check-ins - your vacation tracker, times shown exactly as typed. See every day off at a glance. ### Group chat A dedicated chat tab for every trip - message the whole group, edit or delete your own messages, and catch up instantly with real-time delivery. Organizers can moderate the conversation. ### Receipts, tickets & expense reports Every receipt sits on its expense, every boarding pass on its flight - private to your group. Flag business costs on expenses, hotels and flights and export a per-person PDF report for work trips. ## Ready in three steps. 1. **Create a trip** - Set your destination, pick your dates, and add a budget if you like. Ready in under a minute. 2. **Invite your crew** - Share a single link in any chat. Friends join instantly - no account sign-up required to participate. 3. **Plan together** - Vote on ideas, split costs, share lists and notes. Everyone in the loop, in real time. ## Built for any group. Any plan. ### Vacation trips The original use case - and still the best. Flights, accommodations, activities, expenses, travel documents, shopping lists. Everything for a group trip, in one app. (Made for this, Full feature set) ### Van life & road trips Plan your van road trip stop by stop. The shared calendar tracks every campsite and city, expense splitting keeps fuel and food costs fair, and the shared packing list keeps the van organized for the whole crew. (Route planning, Expense splitting) ### Bar & dinner nights Vote on where to go, track who paid what during the evening, and settle up at the end - no more "I'll pay you back" that never happens. (Activity voting, Live expense tracking) ### Hobby groups & clubs Organise your monthly board game night, weekend BBQ, or hiking meetup. Plan activities, vote on the date, manage shared costs - all without the WhatsApp chaos. (Recurring meetups, Group coordination) ### Day trips & weekenders A Saturday at the lake, a day hike, a cabin weekend - Vacationist handles the coordination for anything that needs a plan but doesn't need a full travel agent. (Quick planning, Shared calendar) ### Timeshare & vacation rentals Coordinate timeshare stays, shared vacation homes, and holiday rentals. Track who's arriving when, split running costs among co-owners, manage shared shopping lists, and keep travel documents ready for check-in. (Cost sharing, Vacation tracking) ## The words Vacationist uses. ### Group blocker The strongest of Vacationist's five vote tiers - must do, like, open, skip, group blocker - meaning a group member has a real objection to an activity. Nothing is deleted automatically; the activity is flagged so the group can talk it through before anyone books. ### Settle-up plan The simplified list of payments that clears every balance in a trip using the fewest transfers possible, calculated automatically from every logged expense and who paid. ### Guest join (no account) Tapping a trip's invite link and starting to vote, add expenses, and check off shopping-list items immediately - no account, no sign-up, no app install required. ### Business cost flag Flagging an expense, accommodation, flight, rental car, or public-transport cost as a business cost. Flagged items feed a per-person business expense report - a PDF (and Markdown on the web), itemised by date and category - for work trips and team offsites. ### Per-item currency Every accommodation, flight, rental car, and public-transport entry keeps its own currency, independent of the trip's main currency or later changes to it. Conversions use stored daily exchange rates. ### Organizer document access A time-boxed, revocable permission an organizer can be granted to view a member's encrypted travel document. The clock starts only on the organizer's first view, expires after the duration the document owner set, lapses automatically after 7 days if never opened, and can be revoked at any time. ## When Vacationist is the right tool. ### Use Vacationist when… - …your whole group needs to agree on what to do, not just one organizer deciding for everyone. - …you want expenses split, balances tracked, and a settle-up plan without a spreadsheet. - …some people in the group don't want to install an app or create an account just to join. - …you're planning a group trip specifically - not managing ongoing shared costs with the same people indefinitely. - …you want travel documents like passports and IDs stored encrypted, not photographed into a group chat. ### Use something else when… - …you want an itinerary built automatically from forwarded confirmation emails - that's TripIt. - …you want built-in maps and place discovery for researching where to go - Wanderlog does that better. - …you're splitting ongoing costs with the same people indefinitely (roommates, a couple) rather than planning a specific trip - Splitwise is the more mature, focused tool for that. - …you're traveling solo - Vacationist is built around group coordination. - …your company needs central billing or SSO - Vacationist has no company accounts. ## Where these claims come from. ### Travel documents are encrypted at rest with AES-256. AES-256 is the U.S. federal standard for symmetric encryption, defined by NIST FIPS 197 - the same algorithm used for classified data. Source: [NIST FIPS 197 - Advanced Encryption Standard](https://csrc.nist.gov/pubs/fips/197/final) ### Encryption is a security measure the EU's GDPR names directly. GDPR Article 32 lists "the pseudonymisation and encryption of personal data" as an appropriate technical measure for protecting personal information. Source: [GDPR Article 32 - Security of processing](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj/eng) ### Trip data is hosted in Switzerland - the same country as the developer. Vacationist is developed in Switzerland and hosted there too: trip data lives on Supabase's Central Europe (Zurich) infrastructure, governed by Swiss data protection law. Source: [Supabase - Available regions](https://supabase.com/docs/guides/platform/regions) ### You can permanently delete your account and data. GDPR Article 17 gives you the right to erasure - Vacationist's delete-account flow removes your personal data on request. Source: [GDPR Article 17 - Right to erasure](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj/eng) ## Everything you need to know. ### What is Vacationist? Vacationist is a free trip app for collaborative group travel planning. You can suggest and vote on activities, split expenses, track vacation spending, manage accommodations, share shopping lists, and keep everyone in sync - all in one place. It works for everything from city breaks to multi-week road trips. ### How does expense splitting work in a group? Log any group cost - dinner, accommodation, transport, or anything else - pick a category, attach the receipt, choose who paid, and split equally or with custom amounts. Vacationist tracks balances automatically and shows the simplest way to settle up when the trip ends. ### Can I use Vacationist for van life or road trips? Absolutely. Vacationist is ideal for van road trips and overland adventures. The shared calendar tracks each stop, the activity planner keeps the route flexible as plans evolve, the packing list keeps the van organized, and expense splitting makes shared fuel and campsite costs fair and transparent. ### What makes Vacationist different from other group trip planning apps? Vacationist combines activity voting, expense splitting, shared packing lists, and real-time collaboration in a single app designed specifically for group travel. Unlike general-purpose apps, everything is built around the group trip workflow - from suggesting activities and voting as a team to splitting costs and managing travel documents. And anyone can join without creating an account. ### Can I use it for timeshare or vacation rental coordination? Yes. Many Vacationist users coordinate timeshare stays, vacation rentals, and shared holiday properties. Track who's arriving when, split running costs among co-owners, manage shared shopping lists for the property, and keep everyone's travel documents accessible for check-in. ### How does vacation tracking and group sharing work? Each trip in Vacationist acts as a shared workspace. Invite anyone via a single link - they join instantly, no account needed to participate. The vacation tracker view shows your full trip timeline, off-calendar events, and spending at a glance. Changes sync in real time so everyone stays up to date. ### Can I attach receipts and expense a work trip? Yes. Attach a photo or PDF receipt to any expense - it stays private to your trip's members. For work trips, flag business costs as you go - expenses, hotels, flights, transport - and export a per-person report as a PDF, itemised by date and category, with links to the receipts. ### Is Vacationist free to use? Yes. Vacationist is free for every group, with no ads and no paid tier - every feature, including activity voting, expense splitting, and travel document encryption, is included at no cost. ### Do my friends need to create an account to join a trip? No. Anyone can join a trip through a single invite link and participate - voting, adding expenses, checking off shopping-list items - without creating an account. Installing the app is optional. ### Where is my trip data stored, and is Vacationist GDPR compliant? Trip data is stored on Supabase infrastructure in Switzerland (Zurich) - the same country Vacationist is developed in, governed by Swiss data protection law. Travel documents are additionally encrypted with AES-256, a security measure GDPR also names as appropriate for protecting personal data (Article 32), and you can permanently delete your account and data at any time - a right GDPR grants EU users under Article 17. ### Does Vacationist work without an internet connection? Yes. Cached trip data stays available, and changes you make offline - votes, expenses, checked-off list items - are queued and sync automatically once you're back online, for up to a week without a connection. ### What's the difference between Vacationist and Splitwise? Splitwise is a mature, focused expense-splitting app for ongoing shared costs like roommates or couples. Vacationist covers expense splitting too, plus activity voting, shared packing lists, transfer and flight management, encrypted travel documents, and no-account guest joins - built specifically for planning a group trip, not everyday shared finances. ## How Vacationist compares. Splitwise, Wanderlog and TripIt are good at what they do. Here is where a group-first trip app works differently - and where they are still the better pick. Vacationist includes: - Group voting on activities - Expense splitting - Business-cost report across expenses, hotels & transport - Shared shopping & packing lists - Join without an account - Price Where the others are stronger: Wanderlog for maps and place discovery, TripIt for building an itinerary automatically from confirmation emails, Splitwise for payment integrations and a far larger user base. Each comparison page has the full table. ## Why Vacationist - Documents encrypted at rest - No ads, no tracking in the app - Built in Switzerland - Free to use - iOS · Android