How the planner works. And what it deliberately won’t do.
What it asks, and why
The landing page wants two things. When you are going: real dates if you have them, or just a length like “12 nights” if you don’t. And where you are flying from.
Then nine quick questions. Whether you have been to Thailand before, because a first trip and a fourth trip deserve different plans. What kind of Thailand you want, on a slider. What lights you up: beaches, food, temples, jungle, trekking, diving, nightlife, local life. Your honest pace (“jet lag is real”). Sleeping style, hostels to villas. Hotel or airline points worth planning around, which most people skip. Who is going. How you feel about overnight trains and long ferries, which buy you a cheaper, quieter Thailand at the price of some comfort. And last: what time your flight lands.
That last question shapes your entire first day. Land before 10am off an overnight flight and Day 1 stays open to recover. Land midday and you get one thing. Land after 2pm and the plan holds Day 1 to one easy evening thing, with a note on the day itself so you know it was deliberate: by the time you are through the airport and checked in, it is evening.
What the engine weighs
Thailand runs on two monsoons, on two coasts, out of phase. Before the planner places a single day it scores both coasts for your month, using the same month-by-month map we publish. July in Phuket and July on Koh Tao are different trips.
Then the routing rules. Total transit is held to a ceiling set by your trip length, about 10 hours of it for a week away, and the planner would rather drop a stop than rush you. Stops carry minimum stays, so you never unpack for a single pointless night. This is the same math our free route check uses to judge itineraries people bring us.
Inside each day, two systems work side by side. A ranking system: when a stay is short, the thing you would regret missing takes the slot ahead of the merely nice, and things that belong together land on the same day. And a time budget: a full-day outing never lands on the day you arrive, and two full-day outings never share a day. Your first morning in Bangkok is something easy nearby, not a theme park an hour out of town.
Festivals the planner tracks appear on the days your dates touch them, with the hedges kept. So do season notes: Songkran water, burning-season air in the North, the wet coast’s discounts.
What you can change once it’s built
All of it.
Nights. Every stop has a plus and a minus. Take a night away and it does not vanish: it goes to a visible night bank (“2 nights in hand”) until you place it somewhere. Add a night when none are banked and the planner asks where it should come from, because your trip stays the same length. Nothing moves silently.
Places. Tap any stop’s name to change it. You can pick from suggested swaps or search all 19 places we cover so far. Prefer to skip the quiz entirely? The landing page has a second door: Know your route? Build it yourself. Tap places in the order you will visit them, we fill the days with verified plans, and we tell you straight when the transit math gets ugly.
Days. The refresh arrow on any activity offers the next verified thing that actually fits that day. When nothing else fits, it says so instead of pretending.
Keeping it. A share link restores the exact trip on any device. Print / save as PDF is free and adds a proper calendar page when your trip has real dates. Dated trips can also download an .ics file that drops your stays, travel days and the arrival-card reminder into your phone’s calendar.
What it refuses to do
This is the part we would put on a billboard.
It won’t invent an activity. Past what we have verified for a stop, days show as open, “yours to shape.” An open day is the planner telling you the truth. Plenty of trip generators will happily invent day six. Ours would rather hand you a free afternoon.
It won’t quote live prices. The demo deals in estimates, not quotes, checked August 2026. Booking links open real partner searches and carry a label every single time they appear.
It won’t overfill your arrival day. You just flew across the world. The planner knows.
It won’t route both coasts into two weeks. The transit ceiling exists so your holiday is not a sequence of airports and ferry queues. One coast, chosen by the monsoon. The other one will still be there.
It won’t pretend certainty. Where we are unsure, the page says so, and those hedges are part of the information.
What the Companion adds, and what stays free
The demo, the planning, the editing, the share link and the print button: free, now and at launch. The Companion is the $24 per-trip layer for the trip you are actually taking: an arrival and transfer pack (station-to-door steps for every leg, in order, with realistic time ranges and what has to be booked first); a booking checklist with dependencies (what to book by when for this route, the arrival card (TDAC) on the day its window opens, a route-specific cash plan); a workable wet day for every stop; and an offline pack, which is your plan, the pocket pages and the driver cards in a phone-readable file that needs no signal, a document rather than a navigation app. What it is not: live fare tracking, rebooking, unlimited human help, loyalty optimisation. The plain print button stays free for everyone.
It ships with the full planner in late October. Anyone on the list before launch gets the Companion free, for good, including the pre-departure re-check we promised founders; that promise stands as made.
Want the finished version of all this?
The full planner launches in late October. Join now and you’re a founding member: the Companion ($24 per trip after launch) is free for you, for good.
Forty seconds to a full trip.
Answer the questions once and watch the whole thing assemble around your month and your pace.
Try the free demo →