I rarely log into HN, but I just wanted to say thank you so much for building this. I was looking for something just like it a few months ago to plan a trip with some friends that I also wanted to view-only share with a couple others (with a simple link - no account requirements). I was amazed how hard it was to find something like it and how you couldn’t really do that with Google Calendar. Don’t remember exactly what the issue was with other sites I found, but just know I will ABSOLUTELY be using Calenday for all of my collaborative trip planning needs going forward. If you add any other features I can’t wait to see them (and if you leave the site as is, I might be even happier in the long run).<p>Best of luck!
Hi HN!<p>I built this website after having to recreate the same Google Sheets template over and over for different trips. This is basically Google Docs for calendars along with some other helpful features like voting and categories for trip ideas.<p>The website itself was built using SvelteKit with Firebase for the database and authentication, all hosted on Vercel.<p>Feel free to ask anything!
This is interesting, but for me the barrier to entry is too high for me to try it out absent an urgent need.<p>Right now I'm thinking about visiting family sometime this summer and want to figure out the best time, so some sort of joint calendar might be good. But I can solve this problem adequately the usual way. I read through the front page and thought, "Oh, maybe!" But then I got to "Sign up or log in" and that was enough of a barrier that I closed the window.<p>The way to get me to take the next step would be to let me try the product anonymously, with just a unique link. Maybe a link that I can forward, as with Google Docs, to anybody I want to be involved. If I find it useful, then I'd be much more willing to jump through signup and account-linking hoops.
Neat!<p>A collaborative itinerary seems really useful.<p>Any plans to add or design features around coordinating flights for these types of trips? In my experience this tends to be the hardest thing to keep track of collaboratively. I've actually also seen friends using spreadsheets to track flights. It could be cool to add a feature that shows when everyone is landing or leaving.
My 2 cents:<p>It’s really hard to get consumers to switch behaviors for something they already can do through other means. Perhaps this is more efficient in some respect, but only if you ignore the inefficiency of changing your ways to learn a new tool, and further separate it from your existing communications medium (ie text messaging or whatever). I don’t feel like the value proposition is super high here.<p>In general people only tend to use 7 apps, and to create something for a rare activity will be very hard to keep in mind when you go to do it. So capturing the moment when people need to do it with when they find out about you is difficult to time… and that’s if you can convince them to try something new at all.<p>If you’re going consumer specifically for trip planning, I’d focus more on specific pain points versus “nice to haves”. It’s not clear from the website that pain points are considered. It also feels very structured, eg that you know how long you’d stop at a given place. In practice I don’t think many people operate that way, especially for a vacation unless they have reservations.<p>I’d suggest finding a niche with clear pain points that this solves, and then focus on that demographic. That may likely not include consumers.<p>Good luck, it’s really hard to make something new, put yourself out there, and know whether to stick with it or not. I’ve been down this road before. If you don’t try, it really won’t work!
This looks like a wonderful tool, but I would be hesitant to use it solely because I'm sure Calendly's IP lawyers will try to shut you down for the name. (It's similar enough that I mistook the HN post for Calendly several times.)
I'm curious what benefits you see something like this offering over a more "full-fledged" collaborative trip-planning solution like <a href="https://wanderlog.com/" rel="nofollow">https://wanderlog.com/</a>? The benefits of a full-featured travel-planner outweigh a calendar, especially when it does things like automatically calculate the driving time between stops. Other travel partners can "like" things, create new "lists" for whatever ("possible hotels", "restaurants", "attractions", etc.) and then drag them down to specific days. And you can "share a link" to the trip for others to just <i>view</i>, or invite others to collaborate...
Congrats on the launch. My company tried to tackle collaborative trip planning too by doing a shared itinerary (<a href="https://www.lunamoons.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.lunamoons.com</a>). We went as far as collaborative booking where people could split the charge at time of reservation. It's a tricky space but would be happy chat about lessons learned in the monetization space if you're interested. Email is in profile, shoot me a note if you want to connect.
Thank you for building this. I have been meaning to, for a few years.<p>I would suggest that, like when2meet, this should support coordination without every person having signed up. Perhaps require 1 person to have an account to host a day's coordination, but allow coordinators lower friction to use that day without signup. Allow account signup to be a convenient upgrade, rather than a minimum required. I support I wish there were view-urls and edit-urls.<p>I appreciate that you don't hint at marketing emails permission, nor have early signs of turning this into a business like ToS or Privacy Policy. It would however be comforting, clarifying, to share about the person or entity developing and hosting this.
Nice! Using it now for a trip I'm leaving on in a few hours. :D<p>It would be nice to share a link that folks can suggest, without signing up. Kinda hard to get a bunch of people to make accounts on something last minute, and I'd be okay being the one who slots suggestions into times and does general management.<p>EDIT: Adding events is a bit painful. I've been conditioned to click on a calendar where I want the event, then fill in details. Running through every field of a date time in order (day, hour, am/pm, etc) for start and end is a lot of friction.
I would definitely use this, but Google Cal has most of these features, except the voting part. I can already collaborate on a shared cal with my friends or colleagues that sync directly to my devices (e.g. details, times, links, tickets, locations, etc.). What differentiates you from existing calendar apps that would pull users away from the Google/Apple ecosystem?
Great idea. I am finding it difficult to use however. I filed one bug, and it seems that there may be a few more. Maybe there is too much load on the service, but it seems that some of the basic functions are functioning as planned. I look forward to seeing if it is just in passing, because the idea is super!
This looks great! I may try this out for a summer trip. We plan trips amongst 3-4 of us. We've used Notion before, but my wife and friend couldn't understand it. We've used a Google spreadsheet and that works OK (using travel planner template). I used a Google doc this time and it's honestly better than the other two, although in Notion I _did_ like the ability to calculate trip cost and budget using tables + calculations.
Fantastic idea and looks great.<p>I can see this going to another level if it had...<p>1) list of suggested travel hotspots to drag and drop
2) provided travel time information between activities
3) show the activites on a map so traveller can visualise and re organise based on location.
This came just in time. So far I'm super happy with it.<p>One feature I think would be cool to have would be a check in/check out time for the first and last day. Other than that I really like it and will be super useful.<p>Good luck!
Cool, wanted to build similar a few years ago. But didn't get past prototype phase because I was basically re-implementing google calendar + one or two small features that I only needed once per year.<p>One feature I really wanted (which I do using google cal with colors, though a bit clunkily) is to provide multiple complete itinerary options, usually it's due to different flights, which slightly shifts everything. It's nice to A/B compare visually, you can much more quickly see which plan is preferred.<p>good work!
Slightly related, but I remember seeing in the past an app/startup that offered a tool to manage the entire companies' calendar, where it tried to optimize everyone's agenda by rescheduling as many meetings as possible close to each other, so everyone would have a lot of continuous free time to focus on more demanding tasks.<p>But I can't find it again no matter how hard I look! Has anyone here seen anything like this? I hope they are still around :(
Honestly, the best I've found for planning trips is creating a custom google maps with all your personal points of interests along with notes, etc.<p>Then planning becomes trivial - hey let's hit up spots a, b, and c.<p>Everyone knows what those are, where they are, notes on them, and everyone is sure they are going to the same address.<p>This app is cool but I imagine it appeals to a certain kind of traveler more than broadly appealing to anyone taking a trip.<p>My two cents.
I am a professor. What I want is for students to quickly and efficiently book 15 meeting slots with me during pre-defined times and they should appear in my calender.<p>My university uses the Office365 suite, and I don't think the above is possible. Either I share my entire Busy/Free calender with them, and specify acceptable times in some other way. Or do a back and forth with them via email.
I like it!<p>However, I would like an interface a more long term and with fewer details.<p>Like I am planning the next summer with my SO, and I would like to know which day each of us is in which continent. So the interface should show me days, not hours.<p>I am not sure I was able to explain
Reminded of <a href="https://www.phocuswire.com/Why-you-should-never-consider-a-travel-planning-startup" rel="nofollow">https://www.phocuswire.com/Why-you-should-never-consider-a-t...</a>
I wish someone recreated Google Trips. Like TripIt, but with better UX and more magic aurorecognition. Preferably self-hosted and with IMAP or JMAP support, so I can give it a folder or a tag to import trips from.
Looks great!<p>Are there any resources in particular that helped you along the way, and may be worth sharing?<p>(Specifically for integrating auth and calendar events)<p>I am building something for personal use to manage calendar, todos, and time tracking