The phrase “it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey” is an understatement when most of the journey is just trying to find one date all your friends can do. Group planning can be one of the biggest hassles of vacation and you and your friends haven’t even boarded the plane yet.

Welcome to the digital era baby 😎

Here are five apps that are going to get your group trip out of the group chat:

1. To plan the whole trip: Howbout
2. Find cheapest deals: Hopper
3. Make it a surprise: Lucky Trip
4. Split your bills: Splitwise
5. Capture your holiday: Lapse

1. Howbout: To plan the whole trip

With the Howbout app, you can easily see what your friends have got going on, make plans and actually get that vacation out of the group chat 🕺

From hitting the slopes for ski season⛷️, tanning it up on the beach in the summer 🌞 and everything in between, if you actually want to get your holiday out of the group chat - Howbout is the app you need.

🗓 Share and sync calendars - Howbout is the social calendar to share your time with friends and actually get your group vacation planned. On the app, you can share calendars with all your friends and groups meaning you can work out the weeks everyone has free to get those flights booked. The question of who’s free and when is solved before you even have to ask 🫡

👯‍♀️ All the details, in one place - All the details of the plan are in one place so everyone knows exactly what’s going on. From flight times, to hotel addresses, to the PDF menu of that one restaurant you’re dying to try, it all lives in your Howbout plan. You can also customise all your events with pictures or gifs to make your plans and invites way more ✨aesthetically pleasing✨

📊 Send polls - Got options for dates? Not sure which hotel to stay in? Easily make a poll within the app to help throughout the decision-making process.

📸 Share your pics and vids - Send pictures and videos into the group chat on Howbout. From photos of the hotel and exciting things to do to videos during the trip of your friend falling into the pool - share with the group in Howbout.

2. Hopper: Find the cheapest deals

Ok - you’ve nailed down the dates. Now it’s time to get flights and hotels booked… for cheap.

Hopper is a quick and easy way to find the cheapest flights, hotels and rental cars online. The app analyses over 30 billion price points so you know that you won’t miss any deals when it comes to booking. It also uses its algorithm to predict the best time to book it and send you a notification when the time’s right.

Once you’ve polled what the group budget is on Howbout, Hopper will make sure you keep to it 🙌

3. Lucky Trip: Make it a surprise

You know those TikToks where a random influencer throws a dart at a map and decides to go on holiday wherever it lands on a whim? You can live that surprise fantasy with the Lucky Trip app/

Once you’ve got the dates nailed down through Howbout, Lucky Trip picks flights, hotels and one thing for you to do whilst you’re away. The app chooses out-of-the-box activities that you’d never have thought of choosing. Take the stress out of deciding where to go and what to do by booking through Lucky Trip. 

4. Splitwise: Split your bills

It happens every time you go out on holiday - the bill arrives, the calculator app comes out and the arguments about how you managed to pass GCSE maths start 👹 Dispel these vacation vexes with Splitwise (with or without the maths GCSE). 

On Splitwise, you can track shared expenses, balances and who owes who that money for cocktails by the pool at the end of the trip.

Make the process even easier by creating a group specifically for your vacation and link to it from Howbout. Say goodbye to the “I got the taxi so you can get the drinks” arguments and actually relax on your trip.

5. Lapse: Capture your holiday

If you, like us, spend the months after your vacation scrolling through your camera roll with serious holiday blues, reminiscing on the times you were on a beach and not in the office - this one’s for you.

What’s better than looking back through your camera roll? Looking back through spontaneous snaps from everyone on your trip, from lazy beach days to feral drunken pics you forgot you took.

Lapse turns your phone into a disposable camera. Take snaps that remain a mystery until they develop at random later that day. You can share your snaps to your Friends feed and get your monthly photo dump, which is automatically created on your profile. Think ✨early 00s✨ meets 📱the digital era📱

Ready to get that holiday out of the group chat? 

Howbout is the ultimate app to share time with your friends and get the group vacation out the group chat ✨