Why I built Jaunts
The frustration that started it all
There wasn't really one trip that gave me the idea for Jaunts. It was more the same frustration repeating itself every time we travelled.
We tend to organise our own trips rather than buying everything as a package. That's great because it gives us the freedom to build exactly the trip we want, but by the time everything is booked, the actual plan is scattered everywhere.
Flights might be with one company, accommodation with another. Then there are airport parking confirmations, transfers, attraction tickets, restaurant bookings and car hire. Some things are in my inbox, some are in my wife's, and somewhere amongst it all is the email containing the one piece of information you actually need right now.
The booking part of travel has become incredibly easy. Keeping track of everything you've booked hasn't.
That was the problem I wanted Jaunts to solve.
The problem with how we plan travel
The strange thing is that most of the information needed to build a really useful itinerary already exists.
When you book a flight, the confirmation email contains the airports, flight numbers and times. A hotel confirmation has the address, check-in dates and booking reference. The same is true for trains, restaurants, attractions and most of the other things that make up a trip.
But those confirmations arrive independently and then disappear into an inbox.
You can manually copy everything into a calendar, spreadsheet, notes app or specialist travel planner, but that creates another job. And personally, I don't want to spend an evening entering information I've already entered once when I made the booking.
I also didn't want Jaunts to become another travel agency. There are already plenty of places to search for flights and hotels.
The problem I wanted to solve happens after you've pressed Book.
What I wanted instead
The idea behind Jaunts was deliberately simple:
Your trips, sorted.
I wanted somewhere that could take all those individual bookings and turn them into the trip automatically.
Forward a booking confirmation and it should just appear in the right place. Flights, accommodation, activities and transport should form a chronological view of the trip without having to manually type all the details in again.
And because most trips aren't taken alone, that itinerary should be easy to share. Everyone travelling should be able to see the same plan without forwarding a chain of confirmation emails or asking, "What time is the flight again?"
The important part for me was reducing the effort involved. A travel organiser that creates another administrative task isn't really solving the problem.
How Jaunts works
That's essentially what Jaunts does.
Forward or add a booking confirmation and Jaunts uses AI to understand it, extract the useful details and add them to your trip.
Instead of a collection of unrelated emails, you get a clear, chronological itinerary showing where you need to be and when.
You can then share the trip with the people travelling with you, so everyone has the same view of the plan.
Where it's going
Getting your bookings organised is the starting point rather than the end of the idea.
Once Jaunts understands the shape of a trip, it can start doing more useful things with that information.
For example, if you've booked flights and a hotel but haven't arranged how you're getting from the airport to the hotel, Jaunts can identify that gap. Over time, I'd like it to help with those missing pieces rather than simply showing what you've already booked.
There's also something interesting in the trips people have already created. With the personal details removed, real itineraries could become a useful source of inspiration: not a generic list of "10 things to do in Barcelona", but an example of how somebody actually put a three-day Barcelona trip together.
The aim, though, remains the same as when I started building it: Jaunts shouldn't make planning a trip more complicated.
It should take away some of the admin so you can concentrate on the part that actually matters — going somewhere.
Ready to try it? See how Jaunts works or get started free.
Frequently asked questions
What problem does Jaunts solve?
Jaunts consolidates scattered booking confirmations into a single, chronological, shareable itinerary — so you are not digging through your inbox for flight times and hotel addresses.
Is Jaunts free?
Yes, Jaunts is free to use and requires no credit card.