What is the best app to plan a trip with friends?

Junto is designed for how friends actually plan trips together. Most apps handle one piece (bookings, splitting costs, or solo itineraries), so the rest ends up scattered across WhatsApp, spreadsheets, and Splitwise. Junto puts AI itinerary generation, group voting, real-time editing, and expense splitting in one place.

Why use Junto instead of starting from scratch every trip?

Because trips don't really end when you fly home. Junto is built to be your travel hub over time, not a one-off planner you abandon after the trip. Every trip you plan, past, current, and upcoming, lives in one home, with its itinerary, bookings, expenses, and group decisions intact. That means you can look back at what you did in Lisbon two years ago when a friend asks for tips, see who still owes you from the ski trip, or reuse the structure of a trip that worked well as a starting point for the next one. The more you use it, the more useful it gets: your travel history, your favorite spots, the people you travel with, all in one place instead of scattered across chats, screenshots, and folders.

How does Junto use AI?

Junto's AI shows up across the trip, not just at the planning stage. You describe the trip in plain language, like 'four friends, Tokyo, late June, mid-range, foodie focus,' and Junto generates a full itinerary: days, activities, restaurants, accommodation, paced reasonably and grounded in real places. The real magic is everything after that. Snap a photo of a restaurant receipt and the AI reads the total, currency, date and line items, then splits it across the group. Forward a hotel confirmation email or screenshot a flight ticket and the AI pulls out the dates, locations and confirmation numbers and adds them to the trip automatically. It also surfaces visa and entry requirements per traveler, and adapts as plans change. Your group still drives the decisions; the AI handles the busywork so everyone stays on the same page without anyone playing trip secretary.

Why not just use ChatGPT to plan a trip?

ChatGPT is great for brainstorming, but it stops at a wall of text. Junto picks up where the suggestions end. Once you have an idea of what you want, Junto turns it into a structured trip your group can vote on, edit together in real time, and come back to as plans change. It also handles the parts a chat can't: splitting expenses from a photo of a receipt, parsing booking confirmations from a screenshot, and tracking entry requirements like visas. ChatGPT helps you brainstorm; Junto helps you actually run the trip together.

Can Junto split travel expenses?

Yes — and you don't have to type anything. Snap a photo of the receipt and Junto's AI reads the total, currency, date and line items, then splits it across the group. Add expenses as the trip happens, split by person or share, handle multiple currencies, and see who owes whom at any time. It lives next to the itinerary, so you're not switching between Junto, your camera roll and Splitwise.

Does Junto work for solo travelers too?

Yes, though Junto is built for groups first. Solo travelers use it for AI itinerary planning, saving bookings, and tracking entry requirements like visas and vaccinations. If you're planning alone with no chance of inviting anyone, Mindtrip or Wanderlog might be a closer fit. Junto's edge shows up the moment there's even one other person involved.

How is Junto different from TripIt, Wanderlog, or Splitwise?

Each of those does one piece well. TripIt organizes booking confirmations. Wanderlog focuses on solo itinerary building. Splitwise only handles cost splitting. Junto is built for the part those tools leave out: planning together. AI generates the trip, the group votes and edits in real time, expenses split alongside the plan, and bookings live in one place. It's the workspace, not the spreadsheet.

Is Junto a mobile app or a website?

Both. Native iOS and Android apps are coming soon. For now, Junto runs in any browser and installs to your home screen on phone or desktop, with every change syncing across devices in real time.

10 Days in Istanbul — Itinerary & Trip Plan

Best time

April–June, September–October

Currency

TRY

Language

Turkish

Time zone

GMT+3 · Türkiye Time

Ferry horns blast across the Bosphorus while gulls wheel over Eminönü, chasing the smell of grilled mackerel sandwiches. Ten days lets Istanbul unfold at its own tempo, between minarets, tea glasses, and the low rumble of the tram down Istiklal.

What's waiting for you in Istanbul

Junto AI builds your full itinerary around your dates, your group and the way you like to travel.

Sultanahmet's Byzantine and Ottoman Core

Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, Topkapı Palace, and the Basilica Cistern sit within a ten-minute walk of each other.

Photo by Joshua Kettle on Unsplash

Grand Bazaar and Spice Market Trading Halls

Kapalıçarşı's 4,000 shops and the Mısır Çarşısı pyramids of sumac, urfa biber, and Iranian saffron reward slow browsing.

Photo by Deniz Bireroglu on Unsplash

Karaköy and Galata Eating

Börek at Karaköy Güllüoğlu, baklava at Karaköy Lokantası, and tiny meyhanes pouring rakı under the Galata Tower.

Photo by Amo Journey on Unsplash

Bosphorus Ferry to Kadıköy

Cross to the Asian side for Çiya Sofrası's regional Anatolian dishes and the produce stalls along Güneşli Bahçe Sokak.

Photo by Julien Goettelmann on Unsplash

Chora Church and the Walls of Theodosius

Kariye Mosque's 14th-century mosaics and the old land walls anchor a quieter day in Fatih and Balat.

Photo by Stepan Konev on Unsplash

Çukurcuma and Cihangir Antique Hunting

Orhan Pamuk's Museum of Innocence sits among dealers selling Ottoman silver, Bakelite radios, and old Turkish film posters.

Photo by Josef Kali on Unsplash

About this Istanbul trip

Istanbul does not introduce itself gently. Step out of the tram at Sultanahmet and you are already standing between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, with the call to prayer rolling across the rooftops and a simit seller pushing his red cart through the crowd. Ten days is the right length here. It gives you time to handle the headline monuments without rushing, then cross the water, get lost in side streets, and start recognizing the same çaycı who brings tea to your favorite shopkeeper.

Spend the first stretch in the old city. Topkapı Palace deserves a full morning, especially the Harem and the treasury. The Basilica Cistern is best at opening time before tour groups arrive. Walk from there into the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Market, then up through the workshop lanes around Süleymaniye Mosque, where Sinan's masterpiece sits above terraces of cheap kebab houses popular with students. Save a day for Chora Mosque in Edirnekapı and the colored wooden houses of Balat and Fener along the Golden Horn.

Cross the Galata Bridge and the trip changes register. Karaköy and Galata mix specialty coffee with century-old baklava counters. Walk Istiklal Caddesi up to Taksim, detouring through Çukurcuma's antique shops and Cihangir's cat-filled cafés. Take a public ferry (not a tour boat) up the Bosphorus to Anadolu Kavağı, or shorter, hop to Kadıköy on the Asian side for lunch at Çiya Sofrası and a crawl through the fish market.

Stay in Karaköy or Cihangir for atmosphere, Sultanahmet for proximity to sights. Mid-range hotels run 80 to 150 USD. April, May, September, and October bring the best weather; July and August are hot and packed. Use the Istanbulkart for trams, ferries, and funiculars. Book Hagia Sophia mosque visits around prayer times, and never skip a fish sandwich at Eminönü.

One tool for the whole trip

From the first idea to settling up at the end, Junto handles the planning so you don't have to be the group's travel agent.

Junto AI trip builder on laptop showing a day-by-day itinerary with map and budget

A day-by-day plan, built around your group

Junto AI maps every day to your pace, dates and the people you're with, with venues, timings and a real route you can actually follow.

Junto trip dashboard showing trip overview, members, expenses and flight

Your whole trip on one screen

Dates, crew, flights, expenses and entry requirements all in one dashboard, so nothing falls through the cracks.

Junto expenses screen showing group balances

Settle up effortlessly

Track every shared expense and let Junto figure out who owes what. No spreadsheets, no awkward Venmos.

Junto group activity screen showing threaded comments and reactions on itinerary items

Decide together, in real time

Comments, reactions and decisions sit on the actual itinerary item: venue, day, address. No parallel group chat that drifts away from the plan.

And a whole lot more under the hood

Everything you need to plan, book and remember the trip, in one place.

Ideas board

Group polls

Bookings & docs

Receipt scanning

Map & route

Item comments

Entry requirements

Invite & share

Push reminders

Calendar export