TREK — Self-Hosted Collaborative Travel Planner

Introduction

TREK is an open-source travel planning platform you can self-host to organize trips collaboratively. It combines interactive maps, day-by-day itineraries, budget tracking, and packing lists into a single app, letting travel groups plan together in real time without relying on commercial services.

What TREK Does

• Creates detailed trip itineraries with drag-and-drop day planning
• Displays routes and points of interest on interactive maps
• Tracks shared budgets with per-person expense splitting
• Manages collaborative packing lists with assignment and check-off
• Supports real-time collaboration so multiple users can edit trips simultaneously

Architecture Overview

TREK is a TypeScript full-stack application. The frontend is a responsive PWA built with modern web frameworks, while the backend provides a REST API backed by a relational database. Real-time collaboration uses WebSocket connections. The entire stack runs in Docker containers defined in the provided compose file.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Deploy with Docker Compose using the included configuration
• Configure the database connection and authentication settings via environment variables
• Enable SSO integration for team authentication
• Set up HTTPS by placing TREK behind a reverse proxy like Caddy or Nginx
• Data persists in a PostgreSQL database with standard backup and restore procedures

Key Features

• Real-time collaborative editing with conflict resolution
• Interactive map view with route visualization and POI markers
• Budget tracker with multi-currency support and per-person splitting
• PWA support for offline access on mobile devices
• Clean, responsive UI that works on desktop, tablet, and phone

Comparison with Similar Tools

• Wanderlog — commercial app with similar features; TREK is fully self-hosted and free
• TripIt — focuses on itinerary aggregation from emails; TREK is for ground-up trip planning
• Google Trips — discontinued; TREK fills the gap with a self-hosted alternative
• Notion — generic tool adaptable for travel; TREK provides purpose-built trip planning features

FAQ

Q: Can multiple people edit the same trip? A: Yes. TREK supports real-time collaboration with live updates across all connected clients.

Q: Does it work offline? A: The PWA mode caches trip data for offline viewing. Edits sync when the connection is restored.

Q: What database does it use? A: PostgreSQL by default, configured through the Docker Compose setup.

Q: Can I import trips from other services? A: There is no built-in import from commercial planners, but you can manually recreate itineraries.

Sources

• https://github.com/mauriceboe/TREK
• https://github.com/mauriceboe/TREK#readme