Welcome to the VERY FIRST Likeplan updates, your weekly does of road trip plans, travel buddy matches and everything happening across our community.

I nearly didn’t send this one, why? As we are going through the rebranding and changing domain of Likeplan, I have lost a whole weekend’s worth of work in setting up this newsletter and have to quickly redo it again…So here it is!

Matching people up for road trips for the past few months has taught me a lot about what makes or breaks a road trip.

1. What are your dates, and are you flexible?

Mismatched timeframes are the #1 trip-killer. Many matchesfell through because the timeline didn’t work out, one person has to be somewhere by certain date. Lock this down before anything else.

2. What’s the sleeping setup? Tent, van, or splitting hostels?

This will make or break the trip. Some people may not feel comfortable sharing a tent, some might find that it is not such a big of a deal. Everyone is different.

3. What’s the vibe? Spontaneous or planned out?

Come up with your “travel style” you prefer, alignment on “schedule, vibe, activities, accommodation, flexibility” is important. Mismatched preferences are what kills a trip, not bad luck.

4. How are we splitting fuel and costs, and whose car is it?

Practical, but also a trust signal. Knowing this early tells you a lot about how organised (and considerate) your potential travel buddy actually is.

5. Can we jump on a call or meet up first?

The single most repeated piece of advice from our interviews. A quick call or coffee before committing lets you vibe-check someone in a way that messages never will. If it feels off, trust that.

None of this is rocket science 🚀 but skipping these questions is exactly how good trips go sideways. Ask them early, ask them directly, and you'll save yourself a lot of grief on the road. 🚐

Speaking of doing something slightly reckless on the road...

Since a road trip isn't complete without at least one "why did I agree to this" moment…We are partnering with Skydive Australia to offer our community 10% discount on skydiving across Cairns, Mission Beach, Airlie Beach, Noosa and more…

Just send me an email at [email protected] and I can organise tickets for you 😄

Some of you might be confused with what is Likeplan? Is it a website? Is it an app?

We tried to build an app but that didn’t work out so I decided to dump that project and restart.

We want to help you find road trip buddies, but the bigger vision is to be the go-to platform for road tripping Australia. With that BIG vision in mind, me and Michelle been heads-down building Likeplan 2.0

The last few weeks, we have built Likeplan to help you find and filter travellers who are going the same route.

Check it out and we would love to hear your feedback on how we can improve it 🫶