After hundreds of group trips, the same itinerary skeleton keeps working. Steal this.
The day skeleton
For each day, write five rows:
- Anchor activity — the one thing the whole group is doing today. Non-negotiable.
- Morning — soft start. Breakfast spot or rest until 10.
- Optional add-on — sunrise hike, museum, coffee crawl. Two or three of the group will join; the rest sleep in. This is the pressure valve.
- Evening anchor — dinner spot booked in advance. Always book group dinners — walk-ins for 8 are pain.
- Buffer — 90 minutes of nothing planned. Use for naps, calls home, photo dumps, or the spontaneous detour that becomes the best memory of the trip.
The trip-level rows
At the top of the doc, four blocks:
- Crew + roles — who's on the trip, who owns logistics/money/vibe.
- Budget band — per-person, what's included.
- Bookings ledger — flight numbers, stay addresses, check-in times, confirmation numbers.
- Shared expense rules — what's split equally, what's not.
The day-zero block
The night before the trip starts, run a 15-minute call:
- Confirm everyone's arrival ETA and pickup plan.
- Confirm the Day 1 anchor — "we're meeting at X at 11."
- Confirm who's paying for what on Day 1.
Three confirmations. Trip starts smoothly.
That's the template. Copy it, name your trip, fill the rows. The structure does the work.