TravelMatch
Group trip planner: app, template or Google Sheets (2026)
It starts on a Sunday night. Someone drops "Lisbon in May?" into the group chat. Twelve enthusiastic replies, three links to flights, a meme, two people saying "any weekend except the 16th", and then nothing from Tuesday onwards. Someone helpfully builds a spreadsheet with fourteen columns. By June, the only person who has opened it is the person who made it.
The best group trip planner is the one the whole group actually uses, and that usually means one place instead of four. The one we recommend is TravelMatch: it is free, and the itinerary by day, the polls, the shared costs and the group chat all live inside the same trip. If you would rather not install anything, a Google Sheets template does a decent job of the planning part, and the specialist alternatives each cover one piece: Wanderlog the itinerary, Splitwise or Tricount the money, TripIt the bookings you have already made.
What a group trip planner actually has to do
Planning a trip together is not one job but three. Deciding: where, which dates, what you do on the Thursday. The itinerary: a plan where the day actually fits, rather than a list of nice places. And the money, so nobody spends the week after the holiday chasing anyone for £23.40.
Most groups solve each job somewhere different, and each piece works on its own. What breaks is the gap between them. You change a hotel night in the sheet and the cost logged elsewhere is still the old one. Someone suggests a different stop in the chat and nobody moves it into the plan.
And the part almost nobody mentions: every extra app is one less person using it. By day four, one person is keeping the accounts and the itinerary is only opened by whoever wrote it.
TravelMatch: one trip that holds the plan, the decisions and the money
On TravelMatch you create the trip and invite your people with a link, and from day one that trip has its own space. Inside it there is an itinerary organised by day, where anyone in the group can add and comment on stops. You do not have to start from a blank page: there are ready-written day-by-day itineraries for more than 190 destinations, in 3, 5 and 8-day versions, and you can build from one.
Decisions go into polls, so choosing the destination, the accommodation or the Saturday plan does not take forty messages. Shared costs are logged as you go, and the app works out who owes whom. The group chat sits in the same trip, with photos and documents. It is free, on iPhone, Android and in the browser.
It also does something the planners below do not touch. If someone drops out, or you are one short, you can open the trip so others can ask to join, and you approve each request after seeing their profile, their reviews and how well you match. What it does not do is book anything: everyone books their own flights and accommodation.
Group trip planner apps for just one part
If your group is already formed and you only want to cover one job, these are the alternatives. Everything here comes from each tool's own website or UK App Store listing, checked on 7 October 2026.
For the itinerary, Wanderlog. Its listing describes a free app with an optional Pro subscription. You invite tripmates by email or link and edit the plan together in real time, see stops on a map with times and distances, forward confirmation emails into the plan, and split bills. The listing does not mention a group chat or polls, so those stay in WhatsApp.
For the money, Splitwise or Tricount. Both record who paid and tell you who owes whom. Tricount's site says it is free, with no ads and no daily expense cap. Splitwise is free too, but its free version limits how many expenses you can add each day; unlimited expenses are part of Splitwise Pro.
For bookings you have already made, TripIt. You forward each confirmation to [email protected] and it builds one itinerary from them. The app is free; TripIt Pro renews at $48.99 a year according to its UK listing. It helps once everything is booked, which is to say once there is nothing left to decide.
For deciding, WhatsApp polls. Fine for choosing between two dates, less so for anything bigger, because the question disappears upwards the moment someone posts a photo of their dog.
People also search for "troupe group trip planner". Troupe was launched by JetBlue Travel Products in 2022, but on 7 October 2026 its website did not load and it was not in the UK App Store, so we cannot say what it offers today.
| Itinerary by day | Group decisions | Shared costs | Group chat | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TravelMatch | Yes | Polls | Yes | Yes |
| Google Sheets template | Yes, no map | No | Manual | No |
| Wanderlog | Yes, on a map | Not on its listing | Yes | Not on its listing |
| Splitwise / Tricount | No | No | Yes | No |
| TripIt | Built from bookings | No | No | No |
A group trip planner template for Google Sheets
If nobody wants to install anything, a shared spreadsheet is free with a Google account. Keep it to four tabs, so it stays a plan rather than a wish list with formatting. The columns worth copying:
| Tab | Columns |
|---|---|
| People and dates | Name · Dates they can do · Budget per day (£) · Room preference · Confirmed (yes/no) · Deposit paid |
| Itinerary | Day · Date · Morning · Afternoon · Evening · Where we sleep · Travel time · Booked by |
| Costs | Date · What · Paid by · Amount · Split between · Each owes |
| Bookings | Type · Provider · Reference · Dates · Who it covers · Cancellation deadline |
If you are self-catering, add a meal planning tab (day, meal, who cooks, shopping list). And keep an eye on the cancellation deadlines, because they are what costs money when someone drops out. For the itinerary tab worked out day by day, with an example, see travel itinerary template.
What a sheet cannot give you is the map and the distances, which make a day fit, or a decision that sticks. For that, how to travel with friends and stay friends has the method that gets a group from "where shall we go?" to an answer.
How to plan a group trip: the checklist
The order matters more than the tool. Fix the dates and the people who can do them, rather than hunting for dates that suit everyone. Agree a daily budget as a number, because "not too expensive" means something different to each person. Pick the destination from two or three closed options, with a deadline to vote. Book transport before accommodation. And talk about pace before anyone pays; how to choose travel companions has the questions people only think to ask on day three.
Which group trip planner suits you
If you want one place for everything, TravelMatch: the plan, the polls, the costs and the chat are in the same trip, and nobody has to install three things. If your trip does not have a full group yet, start there too, because it is the only option here where "who is coming" gets solved rather than assumed.
If the group is closed, small and well organised, a Google Sheets template plus Splitwise or Tricount will hold up: two places to look, fine for three people, harder for eight. If you mainly want a map-based itinerary, the alternative is Wanderlog. And if you are not sure whether you want a tour, someone else's trip or your own, group travel three ways sets out the difference.
When the planner is not the problem
Every tool above takes the hardest part for granted: that you already know who is going. If the trip stalls because one friend cannot do the dates and another wants to wait a year, no group holiday planner fixes that. The problem is not the plan. It is the people. I have no one to travel with goes through the real options, and travel buddy apps compared looks at the apps for finding people.
The trip in the group chat still exists. It just needs somewhere to live that is not the chat.
→ Create your group trip on TravelMatch · Free.
Reviewed in October 2026. What each tool does and charges was checked on 7 October 2026 on its own website or official UK App Store listing: Wanderlog ("Wanderlog - Travel Planner"), splitwise.com and the Splitwise listing, tricount.com, TripIt ("TripIt: Travel Planner"). Troupe's website, troupe.com, did not load on that date. Features and prices change, so check each app's own listing before you rely on it.