The travel app for before you book — and for the free evening you didn't plan.
Every travel app starts after you've picked a destination. JauntJot is for the part nobody built: capture your real constraints once — school calendar, budget band, drive radius, who's coming — then compare destinations on a scored board. And when work drops you in a new city with a free evening, get one great answer in ten seconds.
On your device. No account. Nothing to book. Public beta.
Private — your notebook stays on your device
No account, no credit card
Free to start · public beta
Works offline in the airport
Stamped verdicts
Every destination scored, with the exact reasons. No black box.
Pace guard
Flags an overstuffed day before it ruins one.
Handoff checklist
What to book, in what order, when — then it gets out of the way.
25 city primers
Authored and evergreen, cached so Scout works offline.
Export & erase
Your notebook is a file you own, never a lock-in.
Two jobs. One notebook.
Mode one · Trip Studio
Decide where to go — out loud, on a board
Jot your constraints once: date blocks (school calendar included), budget band, how far you'll drive, who's coming and what they love. Add candidate destinations as cards. Each gets scored — season fit, budget fit, getting there, and "everyone gets a win" — with a stamped verdict and the exact reasons. No black box: every score names the profile fact it used.
Compare board with stamp-style verdicts
Day-slat itinerary sketch with a pace guard (it will tell you a family day is overstuffed — the planning-fallacy research says it is)
Handoff checklist: what to book, in what order, when
Mode two · City Scout
Work trip. Free evening. One great answer.
Pick your city, your free window, and your honest energy level. City Scout composes 2–3 found-time plans from an authored primer of 25 US business-travel cities — a dinner neighborhood, one solo-friendly thing, and a walk-or-cab note — each explaining why it fits your profile. Works offline. Ten seconds in a hotel elevator.
25 city primers: authored, evergreen, never scraped
Neighborhoods and traditions — never a hallucinated closed restaurant
Every plan says "verify current hours before you go"
How it works
Ten minutes from blank page to a decision you can defend — and a ten-second answer on the road.
1
Tell it once
A two-minute traveler profile: who's going, what they love, your pace and budget style. Every score will name the fact it used.
2
Deal the cards
Add candidate destinations to the compare board. Each is scored on season, budget, getting there, and "everyone gets a win" — then stamped with a verdict.
3
Sketch the days
Drop anchors into day slats. The pace guard flags an overstuffed day — planning-fallacy research says your first pass is optimistic.
4
Hand off and go
The checklist says what to book, in what order, when. On the road, City Scout turns a free evening into one great answer.
The part chat can't keep
Your traveler profile lives on this device
Generic AI re-asks your constraints every single time. JauntJot keeps a structured traveler profile — you, your people (nicknames and age bands only for kids), food adventurousness, pace, budget style, past trips with "what worked / what didn't" — in your browser's local storage. Answer #2 needs zero re-prompting. Export it anytime. Delete it anytime. We never see it, and there's no booking commission steering the advice.
Why I built this
A note from the person who made it
I built JauntJot for two versions of myself. One is trying to plan a summer trip the whole family will actually enjoy — the kids, the budget, the school calendar, the drive I'm willing to make — without the group chat spiraling into three weeks of "so… where are we going?" The other is standing in a hotel elevator on a work night with one free evening and no plan, tired of typing my whole life into a chatbot that forgets me by morning.
So JauntJot keeps your constraints once, on your device, and answers out loud — with the reasons in plain sight. It never books anything, never takes a commission, and never sees your notebook. If it ever does something that feels like a trick, that's a bug. Tell me.
— Mike, Apps 4 That
Honest pricing
Free is genuinely useful. Paid is for people planning more than one trip at a time. Nothing here is on sale yet — this is a public beta.
Evidence-informed, honestly labeled
The pace guard, the compare board's "stop searching" verdicts, and the jet-lag basics are grounded in a curated knowledge base — planning-fallacy research, peak-end memory science, CDC guidance — with practitioner craft clearly labeled as craft. When something is judgment, JauntJot says so.
Fair questions
The answers a careful traveler should ask for before typing anything in.
Where does my data live?
In your browser's local storage, on your device. There's no account and no server copy of your profile or trips. Kids appear as a nickname and an age band only. You can export everything as a file, or erase it all, from the Profile tab — anytime.
What's actually free?
One active trip sketch with the full compare board, pace guard, and handoff checklist; City Scout for 3 cities; the whole traveler profile; and export, anytime. Free is meant to be genuinely useful, not a trailer.
What does the AI Travel Scout add — and what's the catch?
It's a $4.99/mo add-on: a live scout grounded in the same evidence cards and city primers, in plain English. It's capped at 200 messages a month — the cap is how the price stays honest — it cites its sources, and it never invents hours or prices. The built-in on-device scout stays free and never caps.
Does JauntJot book travel or take commissions?
No. It never books, never quotes live prices or availability, and no commission steers the advice. The handoff checklist tells you what to book, in what order — you book it wherever you like.
What about refunds and cancellation?
Nothing is on sale yet — this is a public beta, and nothing here will silently charge you. When paid plans launch, the terms commit to plain pricing and easy cancellation. See the current Terms for details.
What happens if I clear my browser data?
Your notebook is erased — that's the honest cost of on-device-first design. Export everything from the Profile tab first if you're switching browsers or devices; the export is a plain JSON file you own.
Jot the trip before it's a trip
Two minutes of honest constraints now saves the group chat three weeks of "so… where are we going?"
