4. Core concepts#

Etappe follows a few rules that apply everywhere. Once you know them, you don’t have to learn each area on its own: everything hangs on a trip, every trip has a status, and the app keeps intentions apart from facts.

4.1 The trip as the frame: what belongs to a trip#

The trip is the frame around everything. Sketch, calendar, accommodations, journeys, activities, outdoor activities, budget, journal, packing list, to-dos, checklist, research, reminders, documents and map all hang on it. Every entry belongs to exactly one trip.

That is why deleting a trip takes its contents with it: journal, photos, budget, attachments. The confirmation dialog says so and points out that the trip also disappears from Where I’ve been. If you only want it out of the way, archive it — it moves into the “Archive” filter and stays intact.

Records are not part of the trip: people, pets, vehicles and countries are only assigned to it. Research items may also exist without a trip (Research).

How trip status, sketch and research fit together is explained in 4.6 Idea, sketch or research? Three zoom levels of planning.

4.2 Trip status: Considering, Bucket list, Planning, Making arrangements, Under way, Past#

Every trip carries exactly one status. It determines the color of the pill, the grouping in the trip list and whether the date may move the status forward.

In the trip list, the filter chips run the other way around: trips under way first, “Past” last. You set the status in the trip form under Edit.

4.3 How the status moves along on its own#

At app launch and whenever you open the trip list, Etappe checks whether a status still fits the dates — and corrects it by fixed rules:

1. The trip needs a Start date and must not be archived.
2. Only Making arrangements and Under way are moved forward. Considering, Bucket list and Planning are left untouched — when a plan gets serious is your call.
3. Before the start date the status is “Making arrangements”, from the start day up to and including the end day it is “Under way”, after that “Past”. If there is no end date, the start day is the last day.
4. “Past” is the end of the line: even changed dates don’t bring the trip back — by hand you can change the status at any time.

Once you set a trip to “Making arrangements”, it reports itself as under way on departure day, shows “Day 3 of 12” and files itself away after the last day.

4.4 Participants: people, pets and vehicles travel along#

Who is coming along is set under Edit → Travel party: participants, pets and one vehicle. The assignment is more than decoration:

• People and pets appear as avatars in the hero and on the trip card; a tap opens the list of travelers with their role (“Companion” by default; change it with a long press on a person).
• The Packing list can be kept, filtered and printed per person.
• The Entry checklist checks the participants’ ID documents and the pet rules of the destination countries.
• The vehicle is available for selection in the journey form (Vehicles).

If you later delete a person or a pet from the records, the name stays on the trip — with the note “No longer in records”. A past trip never loses its cast. Someone who simply no longer travels with you is better archived: archived entries no longer appear in new selection lists but stay wherever they are already assigned.

4.5 Why attachments are only possible after saving#

Documents, receipts and photos are attached to a stored entry. As long as that entry does not exist yet, there is nothing to attach them to — which is why the Documents card never appears in the form, only in the detail view. The steps:

1. Create the entry and store it with Save.
2. Tap the entry in the list — the detail view opens.
3. Scroll to the Documents card and add a file or photo.

The exceptions are images that are fields in their own right: the trip’s cover photo, profile pictures in the records, scan and PDF in the ID document form (Documents and receipts).

4.6 Idea, sketch or research? Three zoom levels of planning#

At first glance, trip status, sketch and research look like three similar lists. But they are the same plan at three resolutions — from coarse to fine.

At the very top is the trip itself: with “Considering” or “Bucket list” you only note that the place appeals to you at all (Creating a trip). One level down, the sketch orders the sequence — ferry first, then three nights on the coast — and deliberately carries no dates, only order and duration (Sketch). The finest level is the research item: an entry has an address, phone number, opening hours and price, and means exactly this one hotel (Research).

Each level leads down into the next: a sketch block of type Note becomes a research item via “Create entry”, and a research item becomes an accommodation, an activity or a journey via “Turn into”. You don’t have to start at the top, though — if you already have a particular hotel in mind, create a research item right away.

Not to be confused: activities have their own status “Idea”. It only says how firm a single item on the program is and has nothing to do with the trip status (Activities).

4.7 Planned, booked, actual — how Etappe keeps the three levels apart#

A trip covers the same ground three times: as an intention, as a booking, as an experience. Etappe keeps these apart.

Accommodations and journeys have the booking stages Planning, In progress, Booked, Confirmed, Completed and Discarded; activities Idea, Planned, Booked and Completed; outdoor activities Planned, In progress and Done. The accommodation tile adds “Booked” and “Confirmed” together and colors its number yellow as long as something is still open.

Money works the same way: you set the budget, Etappe adds up the expenses from the actual items (Budget). For journeys, the planned route sits as a dashed line next to the one you drove (Recording a journey).

4.8 Dates, times and time zones#

The trip period consists of plain days without a time. The end date is never before the start — if you move the start later, the end moves with it.

Events additionally have a time: check-in and check-out, departure and arrival, the start of an activity. The date picker shows its own calendar, which starts on Monday and highlights the trip period. Events outside it are allowed — the ferry the evening before is part of the trip. When you save one, Etappe asks “Extend trip period?” with the buttons Extend period and Save date only. If the trip has no period yet, the suggestion is called Apply period.

All times are in your device’s time zone. The only exception is the journey: there you switch on “Destination in another time zone” and set the offset in half-hour steps up to ±14 hours. You enter the arrival as local time at the destination; the detail view labels it “Arrival (local time)”, names the destination’s time zone and factors the offset out of the duration (Journeys).

4.9 Overnight stays: why Etappe counts in nights#

Accommodations think in nights. In the form you enter the check-in day, the number of Overnight stays (1 to 90) and the check-out time; Etappe calculates the check-out date from that and shows it right away.

What is counted are the calendar days between the check-in and the check-out day — the times deliberately play no part. Arrive Friday evening and leave Monday morning, and you are booking three nights.

The trip duration, on the other hand, counts both edge days: Friday to Monday is four travel days. That is why the hero says “Day 1 of 4” while the accommodation shows three overnight stays — both numbers are right, they measure different things (Accommodations, How Etappe does the math).