Caravan

User Guide

Welcome to Caravan. This guide walks you through everything you need to plan a trip with your crew — from creating an account to splitting expenses and using the AI assistant.

What is Caravan?

Caravan is a shared workspace for group trips. Itineraries, stays, flights, expenses, and tasks live in one place so every traveller is on the same page — without juggling spreadsheets and group chats.

Getting started

Setting up your first trip takes about a minute.

  • Create a free account at /register, or sign in with Google or GitHub.
  • From the Trips page, click "New trip", give it a title and dates, and you're ready to plan.
  • Invite your crew from the Members tab — by email or with a shareable link.

Trips and roles

Every trip has three roles. Permissions are scoped per-trip, not per-account.

  • Host — the trip owner. Can delete the trip, transfer ownership, and change member roles.
  • Manager — can edit any content, manage members, and approve share-link requests.
  • Member — can add and edit their own content (expenses they paid, tasks assigned to them, etc.).

Planning your itinerary

Build out where you're going and what you'll do once you arrive.

  • Destinations — cities or regions with start and end dates that segment the trip.
  • Points of interest — restaurants, museums, parks, and anything else worth a stop. Members can mark themselves "interested" to gauge group enthusiasm.
  • Key dates — booking deadlines, ticket releases, and other time-sensitive milestones with optional reminders.

Stays and flights

Track where everyone is sleeping and how they're getting there.

  • Stays — accommodations with check-in / check-out dates, address, and confirmation reference.
  • Flights — single or multi-leg itineraries with airline, flight number, terminal, and gate info.
  • AI suggestions — let the assistant draft stay or flight options, then accept or tweak them.

Expenses and settling up

Stop tallying receipts at the end of the trip — Caravan does it for you.

  • Log expenses with who paid, the amount, and the split (equal or custom).
  • The Debt Summary shows who owes whom across the entire trip.
  • Record settlements when money changes hands. Caravan keeps the running balance up to date.

Tasks

Delegate the booking, the packing list, and the airport pickup. Assign tasks to specific members with optional due dates. The cross-trip /tasks page shows everything assigned to you across every trip you're in.

Comments and sharing

Each trip has a Comments tab for sharing links, photos, and notes that don't fit the structured tabs. To bring someone in, invite them by email or generate a share link from the Members tab — link requests are approved by a host or manager.

AI Assistant

The ✦ AI Assistant button opens a chat dock where you can ask for itinerary ideas, flight options, restaurant picks, or expense summaries. AI features can also generate suggestions directly from the Itinerary, Stays, and Flights tabs.

AI features require an active Caravan subscription. Visit Pricing to upgrade.

Notifications

Caravan can notify you when teammates add expenses, comment on the trip, complete tasks, or when a key date reminder fires. Enable push notifications from Settings → Notifications, and check the bell icon in the sidebar for the in-app inbox.

Offline mode and installing the app

Caravan works offline. Changes you make on the road are queued locally and synced automatically when you reconnect. From a supported browser you can also install Caravan as an app on your phone or desktop — look for the Install banner or your browser's install option.

Billing and support

Manage your plan from Settings → Billing, or compare tiers at /pricing. The free plan includes a limited number of trips; subscribing unlocks unlimited trips and AI features.

Need help that isn't covered here? Reach out at legal@developerbox.com and we'll get back to you.