Trip Planner turns three quick questions into a day-by-day itinerary and a matched home from your own listings, then asks for an email to unlock the full plan, so a guest gets real help picturing the trip and you get a lead who has already told you their dates and group size.
What it does #
A guest who is still deciding where to stay usually has a second question behind the first one: what would our week actually look like? A generic list of attractions rarely answers it. Trip Planner answers it on your site, in your voice, and it asks for an email address at the moment the guest is most interested.
Here is what a guest experiences:
- Three short steps. Dates and group size, the kind of trip (a travel style and a budget), and an optional pick of interests. The only required answers are the dates and whether this is their first visit.
- A plan built from your content. A short summary, up to four highlights, and a day-by-day timeline with morning, afternoon, and evening suggestions. All of the wording comes from content you write, so the plan names your beaches, restaurants, and trails instead of generic filler.
- A home from your own listings. Trip Planner recommends a home that fits the group, with photos, and links to it with the guest’s dates and party added to the link, so the booking widget can pick them up.
- An email gate. Day 1 shows in full. Day 2 appears as a blurred teaser, and the remaining days fold into a “more days in your plan” card. The guest enters an email address to unlock the rest.
- After they unlock. The full plan appears on the page and arrives by email with a private link. The guest can download it as a PDF, share it, or tap Show me another option on a day to swap in a different day you have written.
Trip Planner is a premium Conversion Kit tool, and it needs the guest’s browser to run JavaScript.
How the home match works #
Trip Planner looks at your published properties (you can narrow the list with Property Filter), skips any home with no sleeping capacity saved, and recommends the smallest home that sleeps the adults and children in the group. When two homes tie, the one with fewer bedrooms wins. If no home is big enough, it shows your largest home and labels it “Closest match”. The trip kind a guest picks changes only the wording of the home’s blurb, not which home is chosen. Infants and pets never count toward the group size used for matching.
The date picker does not mark booked nights. Availability is checked only when you switch on Price at Unlock (see step 7 below).
Other homes that fit the group #
When Trip Planner has more than one candidate home, the results show an “Other homes that fit your group” list under the recommended home. The list holds up to the number set by Availability Candidates, counting the recommended home. A guest can swap any of them in with Make this my home, or tick Compare on up to three homes and open a side-by-side view of price, sleeps, bedrooms, bathrooms, and location. Before the guest unlocks the plan, a swap changes only what they see. After they unlock, the swap is saved on the plan.
Personalized plans (optional) #
By default every plan is assembled from your own content, so two guests with the same answers get the same plan. If you switch the Composer to Personalized, an AI model rewrites the summary, the highlights, and each day’s wording to fit the guest’s answers, and it can mention the recommendations you have added. The plan’s structure, the home match, prices, and booking all stay the same, The model is told to name only places from your Recommendations, and a plan that includes a link, a price, a distance figure, or an unknown recommendation is discarded in favor of your authored plan. If anything goes wrong, the guest simply gets your authored plan, with no error and no label.
In Personalized mode the wizard adds a pace question (“How packed should the days feel?” with Relaxed, Balanced, or Full) and a short optional note, and shows an AI disclosure under step 3 and on the email gate. The note is never put in share links or sent to your CRM.
Where the leads go #
Every unlock saves the plan, records an entry under HomeRunner > Entries, emails the guest, sends you a notice (if you set a recipient), and forwards the lead to your CRM (if you switch that on). The guest’s email is also linked to their visitor record. If a booking follows from the plan’s home link, it is credited back to the plan.
How to turn it on #
1. Turn the tool on #
Go to HomeRunner > Conversion Kit, open Trip Planner, and switch on Enable this tool. If you see a Premium Tool notice with a Go to License Settings button instead of the settings, the tool stays locked until the site has an active license, trial, or grace period that includes it.
2. Create the wizard page #
Create a page for the planner (for example, “Plan your trip”) containing the shortcode [hrck_trip_planner], publish it, and choose it under Wizard Page in the Trip Planner settings, which appear once the tool is on. Trip Planner shows nothing to guests until a published Wizard Page is chosen, and the settings do not save without one. The shortcode takes no options. If the page shows the planner through a page builder or template rather than the page content, you can ignore the warning that the page does not contain the shortcode.
3. Add your trip content #
Click Manage Trip Planner Content, or open HomeRunner > Trip Planner and stay on the Content tab. The plan is assembled from one content document that you edit there. The fastest start is to press Reset to Sample (tick the confirmation box first), then replace the sample text with your own. You can also Import a .json file (up to 512 KB) and Export a backup with Download Content JSON. Format JSON pretty-prints the text in the editor when you press it.
The document holds:
- destination and home_base: the name of your area and where guests stay from, used in the plan’s wording.
- styles (trip kinds, up to 12) and budgets (up to 6): each has an id, a label, a short description, and an optional icon. These become the cards in step 2.
- interests (up to 16): the chips in step 3. An interest can list the trip kinds it belongs to, which is how step 3 sorts the most relevant chips first.
- summary_template: the one-sentence summary, with placeholders for the trip kind, month, guests, nights, destination, and home base.
- highlights (up to 40): short lines shown at the top of the results, each tagged with the interests, trip kinds, and budgets it fits.
- days (up to 60): each day is an arrival, middle, or departure day with a theme and morning, afternoon, and evening text, plus the tags it fits and whether it suits first-time or returning visitors.
- property_blurbs: the short line under the recommended home, per trip kind, with a default.
- gate: the teaser text on locked days and the wording of the email gate card.
A plan has one day per night: an arrival day, one middle day per remaining night, and a departure day. That is why the number of middle days you write sets the longest stay guests can plan (middle days plus two). The editor’s Reference list shows the placeholders and the icon names you can use.
The editor checks the whole document on every save. If anything is wrong, nothing is saved, and it lists each problem, with the field path where one applies. The checks include: at least one arrival and one departure day, enough middle days for your minimum nights, at least four highlights that do not depend on children, no duplicate ids, and every tag or icon pointing at something that exists.
If no valid content is stored, guests are served the bundled sample (a destination-neutral “Your Destination” plan), and the Content tab warns you. Save your own content before you send guests to the page.
4. Set trip limits #
Set the shortest and longest stay under Nights (defaults 3 and 14, never below 3 or above 30) and the largest group under Party Size (defaults 12 adults and 10 children). By default a guest can pick a check-in between 7 and 540 days ahead.
5. Choose where leads go #
Enter an address under Lead Notice Recipient to get a plain-text notice for each unlock (it lists the guest’s email, dates, group, trip kind, budget, interests, matched home, any quote, and a plan link). It is sent only after the guest’s own email has gone out. Leave it blank for no notice. Switch on CRM Forwarding to send each unlocked plan to the endpoint you set under Contact Form > Inquiry Forwarding. See Contact Form.
6. Match your brand #
Pick a Skin: Classic blends into your theme, and Editorial adds a display serif, a dark results band, and an italic accent subtitle. Set Accent Color for buttons, highlights, and the plan email, and Display Font for headings if your theme already loads a face you want to use. Under Step 1 Fields you can reword the Dates and Guests labels and placeholders, and under Guest Rows you can add an Infants row and a Pets row. For deeper restyling, see the Conversion Kit Styling Reference.
7. Show live prices (optional) #
Switch on Price at Unlock and, when a guest unlocks, Trip Planner asks HomeRunner for a live price for the plan’s dates and group. The home card shows the total for the guest’s dates, the plan email reads “from $X for your dates”, and your notice gets a Quoted line with the dates and group size. Price at Unlock needs the HomeRunner plugin; without it, plans are saved without a quote. If the best-fitting home is unavailable for those dates, it tries the next best fit, up to Availability Candidates (default 3). A stored price stops showing after 30 days. If no home prices, the guest keeps the capacity match without a price, and Trip Planner tries again later when they reopen their link.
Add Price Before Email to show the live price on the locked preview, before the guest gives an email. It needs Price at Unlock, and switches itself off if that is not on. If none of the first few matches can be priced for the dates, the preview says “No availability among our first N matches for these dates”. Even with Price at Unlock off, the other-homes list can show a starting price marked “before taxes and fees”.
8. Personalize with AI (optional) #
Under AI Composer, choose Personalized (LLM), save an OpenRouter key with Save Key (the key is stored separately from the other settings and never shown again), and pick a Model. Daily LLM Cap limits how many AI calls run per day, shared by unlocks and day swaps. To let the model mention local places, add them under Recommendations (see below).
9. Add recommendations (optional) #
Recommendations are the restaurants, beaches, and attractions the AI can weave into a plan. Add each as a Recommendations entry with one category (an entry needs a category before it can be published), an optional website, its interest tags, and either coordinates (“lat, lng”) or the Area-wide box for places with no fixed spot. In Personalized mode, plans then show each place with its straight-line distance from the home, and area-wide places show no distance. Recommendation Radius (km) hides places farther than that many kilometers from the home (0 turns the filter off), and Distance Unit picks whether the distance is shown in miles or kilometers. Recommendations are used only in Personalized mode.
What guests can do after unlocking #
- Read the full plan on the page and in the email, with a private link that opens the complete plan on its own page.
- Download PDF opens the plan in a new tab and starts the browser’s print dialog, so the guest can save it as a PDF. The printed page shows the public share link, never the private one.
- Share copies a link or sends it by native share, WhatsApp, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, or email. A share link carries the guest’s answers but not their email or note, so whoever opens it starts with their own preview.
- Show me another option swaps a day for the next best day you wrote for the same spot in the trip. Each tap cycles through the alternatives. The email keeps the plan as it was sent, and the private link always shows the latest version.
- Change dates or guests takes the guest back to step 1 with their answers kept.
Plans, emails, and privacy #
The Plans tab under HomeRunner > Trip Planner lists the latest 100 unlocked plans with the guest’s email, dates, matched home, price quote, whether the guest email, your notice, and CRM forwarding went out, any booking credited, and the number of swaps. Totals for the last 30 and 90 days show plans unlocked, plans booked, and booked value. The tab is read-only. To resend, open the plan’s entry under HomeRunner > Entries and use Resend in its delivery log, which resends the plan as it is now. A Health block in the Trip Planner settings counts recent send failures.
The plan email is the Trip Plan email in the Emails hub, where you can edit the subject, headline, intro line, button label, and footer note. See Emails.
Guests can unlock up to five plans per email address in any 24 hours. If the Contact Form’s reCAPTCHA is on with both keys saved, the unlock is also checked invisibly; if it is not, there is no captcha step.
Retention (days) deletes old plan records after that many days. The default 0 follows the Entries retention setting. Booking events already recorded in your analytics are kept. WordPress’s privacy export tool lists each guest’s plans under a Trip Plans group, and the erase tool deletes those plans. If you use Personalized mode, note that the erase tool cannot remove data already sent to the AI provider.
Settings #
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Enable this tool | Turns Trip Planner on. Nothing shows to guests until you choose a published Wizard Page. The site also needs an active license, trial, or grace period that includes the tool. |
| Wizard Page | The published page that carries [hrck_trip_planner]. Required. |
| Results Route Base | The address prefix for plan pages. Default trip-plan, so a plan lives at a link like yoursite.com/trip-plan/…. Must be 3 to 40 characters and cannot match a reserved word, an existing page, or another URL. |
| Nights, Min / Max | The shortest and longest stay a guest can plan. Defaults 3 and 14. Never below 3 or above 30, and capped by your number of middle days plus two. |
| Party Size, Max Adults / Max Children | The largest group. Defaults 12 adults (1 to 30) and 10 children (0 to 30). |
| Lead Notice Recipient | Where the notice for each unlock goes. Blank (the default) sends no notice. |
| CRM Forwarding | Off by default. When on, each unlocked plan is forwarded to the Contact Form’s outbound webhook. |
| Property Filter | Limits the homes Trip Planner can recommend to one taxonomy term (a category, for example). Default: all properties. A filter that no longer matches anything recommends nothing. |
| Price at Unlock | Off by default. Fetches a live price for the plan’s dates at unlock and shows it on the home card, in the plan email, and in your notice. Stored prices stop showing after 30 days. |
| Availability Candidates | How many best-fit homes to try pricing before giving up, 1 to 5. Default 3. With 1, Trip Planner shows only the capacity match and no other-homes list. |
| Price Before Email | Off by default. Shows the live price on the locked preview. Needs Price at Unlock. |
| Retention (days) | Deletes plan records after this many days, 0 to 3650. Default 0 follows the Entries retention setting. |
| Step 1 Fields | Optional wording for the Dates label, Dates placeholder, Guests label, and Guests placeholder. Each is up to 40 characters. Blank keeps the defaults (“Dates”, “Add dates”, “Guests”, “Add guests”). |
| Guest Rows | Show an Infants row (under 2) and a Pets row in the guest picker. Both off by default. They are saved with the plan but do not count toward matching. |
| Accent Color | The accent for the wizard, results, and plan email. Default #1f6f6b. |
| Skin | Classic (the default) blends into your theme. Editorial adds a display serif, a dark results band, and an italic accent subtitle. |
| Display Font | A CSS font-family for headings. Blank uses the skin’s default. Trip Planner never loads fonts, so name one your theme already loads. |
| Composer | Deterministic (the default) builds every plan from your content. Personalized (LLM) lets an AI model personalize the wording at unlock. Needs a saved key. |
| Model | The AI model, chosen from a short list. Default anthropic/claude-haiku-4.5. |
| OpenRouter API Key | Saved with its own Save Key button and never shown again. Remove stored key deletes it. If the key is set in your site’s code, that key always wins. |
| Daily LLM Cap | The most AI calls per day, shared by unlocks and day swaps. Default 200. 0 means no limit. |
| Recommendations | “Weave Recommendations into plans.” On by default, and used only in Personalized mode. |
| Recommendation Radius (km) | Hides recommendations farther than this many kilometers from the home. Default 40, 0 turns the filter off. Area-wide recommendations are never filtered. |
| Distance Unit | Miles (the default) or Kilometers, for the distance shown on a recommendation. |
Tips #
- Trip Planner plans what a guest does and matches one home. If a group needs several homes for the same dates, use Trip Builder instead.
- Write more days than the minimum. The editor requires enough middle days for your shortest stay, but the extra days are what Show me another option cycles through.
- Tag days and highlights with the trip kinds and budgets they fit, and tag interests with the trip kinds they suit. That is what lets the plan feel matched to the guest instead of the same for everyone.
- If the Plans tab shows a guest email as failed, open the plan’s entry under HomeRunner > Entries and use Resend once you have fixed the sending problem. See Form Entries.
- Turn on Price at Unlock to put a real price for the guest’s dates on the home card and in the email, which gives the guest a concrete next step.
- Link to your Wizard Page from your menu or homepage. The standalone plan page links back to it too. See the Conversion Kit overview for the rest of the tools.