Who planned the trip? TikTok trend reveals the unsung heroes of vacation planning

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As soon as they decided to visit Clearwater, Florida, Hannah Henderson and her travel companions jumped into action.

The 24-year-old booked the Airbnb, one friend booked a pontoon boat ride and another the dinner reservations. Her husband, Brady ... was there, too.

“So that morning, when we woke up, he was like, ‘Alright, I need the address. Where are we going?’ ” she said. “Like, he was just along for the ride and had fun with it.” He pitched in by driving the group down from South Carolina.

That became the basis for a TikTok the group filmed near Honeymoon Island State Park, cutting to different members of the group as they call out their contributions, and cutting Brady off before he could name his: None (joking, of course).

Henderson, who works for a nonprofit, is a planner by nature, while her husband is “so go with the flow, and he would be willing to take the hit on the TikTok,” she joked.

The format is part of a popular trend on the social media app, in which travelers highlight who does – and does not do – the planning in their friend groups and relationships.

'I booked the...'

Claudia Torres can be seen walking on a beach in the Dominican Republic in an early April TikTok. “Hi, I’m Claudia, and I booked the flights,” she says. The video then shows her partner, Victor, who says “Hi, I’m Victor and I – ,” before cutting back to her.

“Hi, I’m Claudia, and I booked the hotel,” she says. The back-and-forth continues for nearly 15 seconds.

“I showed him the trend, and it was just a way for us to kind of make a joke out of it,” the 26-year-old engineer told Paste BN. “However, for us, it works well because we play to our strengths.”

While vacation planning creates excitement for Torres, she said Victor finds it stressful. When they’re home in Toronto, though, he “does a lot of the daily heavy lifting, per se,” such as cooking, while she is more organization-minded.

“So, we also see it in a way that it's a chance for him to kind of take a step back and just enjoy our trip,” Torres said. “It’s also a way to even out our household.”

Torres had been to Punta Cana even before their trip there in April, giving her a clearer idea of what they might want to do.

Ashton Preston posted a similar TikTok from a trip to Santorini earlier this month. 

He and his girlfriend, Kayla Jackson, typically split up trip planning – he books the actual travel, such as flights, while she does “deep dives” on Reddit to find activities. This time, though, the 27-year-old Dallas resident organized it largely on his own – with the help of a travel agent – as a surprise to celebrate her graduation from pharmacy school.

Jackson still handled some activities, though, booking a couple of dinner reservations. One of those, Mediterranean eatery Barolo, was where they shot the video. “So that's also (why) we were like, ‘Hey, we got to do it here,' ” he said.

Travel tips from the planners among us: From notes to spreadsheets

Being the travel planner in your friend group or relationship often comes with a bit of strategy.

◾Henderson’s group uses a shared note in the iPhone Notes app to collaborate on what has become an annual trip. They “brain dumped” potential destinations there, ranging from Arizona to New York. She and one other friend took the lead on researching Airbnbs in their price range, and dropped links to those in the file as well.

“Then we’d text and call each other and be like, ‘Hey, we found an Airbnb in Mississippi, or we found one in Clearwater,’ and that's how we kind of funneled down to where we wanted to go,” she said.

◾ Torres, meanwhile, said “spreadsheets and Google Maps are really my best friends when it comes to (planning).” She likes to get a sense of her travel companions’ budgets and go from there, doing research and waiting for deals – such as the post-Thanksgiving sale when she booked their Punta Cana hotel – or keeping an eye out for recommendations from travel TikTok creators.

"I have my nice spreadsheet and more or less what it would cost, and then obviously before booking, I would send the spreadsheet out to the same people that I'm going with,” she said. “If they approve it, perfect. If not, we can talk about it and make some compromises.”

◾Preston similarly uses Google Flights and Hopper to analyze flight options and prices.

For Henderson, in addition to poking fun at their various roles, the video serves as a reminder of the fun they had on the trip – and while planning it.  “So I was like, let's just pull a TikTok together just to remember our trip.”

Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for Paste BN based in Nashville. You can reach him at ndiller@usatoday.com.