Why your group opens the day you book

On our Southern France trip, Your Group opens in the app as soon as your booking is confirmed. Not on a set date before departure, and not at the airport. The moment you are booked, it is there.

We sell this trip, so read this as an explanation of our own choice. Here is what opens, why we open it early, and what it does not do.

What opens when you book

Three things appear in the app once your booking is confirmed:

• The group chat. A place to say hello, ask a question or say nothing.
• The roster. A list of who else is going on your departure.
• Live Moments. The free, optional things the group does together, marked in the itinerary.

That is the whole of it. Your Group means the other travelers on the same departure and their chat. It is not a schedule, and it is not a person running anything.

There is no tour guide on a Guideless trip: nobody from the company travels with the group, and nothing about your day is decided for you. Your Group does not change that. Nobody in it is in charge, and the chat is not where your days are set.

Why we open it at booking

The reasoning is simple. If the group only appeared on the first evening, you would meet it as a room full of strangers. If it opens when you book, you can see who is coming and start planning together from the start.

That has practical uses on this trip:

• You can see who else is on your departure, either 14 to 22 May 2027 or 11 to 19 June 2027, before you set off.
• You can ask the others about arrival plans. Day 1 is in Nice, and you land when it suits you.
• You can see early who is thinking of the optional extras, and decide whether to add them yourself.

The optional extras are never included. The Riviera boat day, the Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine afternoon, dinner at L'Ambassade d'Auvergne, a private airport transfer and an extra night in Paris are each something a traveler adds or skips, and each is priced separately. The boat day is $1,345 for your group as one unit. The wine afternoon is $110 per person. The app shows who from Your Group is in on the boat day and the wine afternoon, so an early roster helps you judge whether they suit you.

The dinner on day 8 is $43 per person, and again it is optional. The private airport transfer is $44 for your group as one unit, and an extra night in Paris is $355 per person. None of these is part of the trip price.

What Live Moments are, and are not

Live Moments are free and optional. On this trip the itinerary marks these:

The first-evening item is an optional meet-up at 8 pm at a bar in the old town. Come and go as you like; the app shows who is coming. It is not hosted, and nothing is provided. The jog is free, at whatever pace you like, or you can walk it. The ramparts walk is a slow loop after dinner, an hour, no agenda.

A Live Moment is marked in the itinerary. It is never a prompt or a notification. Nobody chases you to turn up, and there is no sign-up.

Why nothing in it is mandatory

A group you cannot opt out of is a tour. We built the opposite. A Guideless trip is independent travel: the days are yours, and the group is there to meet if you want it.

So you can open the app, look at the roster and never post. You can join one morning jog and nothing else. You can read the chat and stay quiet for nine days. All of that is a normal way to use Your Group, and none of it costs you anything.

There is a practical reason too. People on one departure may be in different hotel levels, because the hotel is the only thing the price changes. The days are the same for everyone. The free moments are how people in different rooms end up on the same trip. For more on that, see the free days and four hotel levels.

What it does not depend on

Opening early does not mean your trip waits on the group filling up. A Guideless trip runs even if you are the only person on it. There is no guide and no group cost to reach, so your trip going ahead is never a question of whether enough strangers book it.

So if you open Your Group and the roster is short, or just you, nothing about your hotels or your trains changes. Your Route, the day-by-day plan with its fixed points, is the same.

For questions about group size, go to the FAQ. We do not sell the trip on how big or small the group is, because that does not change what you do each day.

What to do with it

If you like to plan, open the roster after you book and read the itinerary alongside it. If you prefer to arrive cold, leave it closed until you land in Nice. Both work.

The trip is Nice for three nights, Avignon for two and Paris for three, with the trains between them. The price starts from $2,605, and the hotel level you choose sets it. Flights, most meals, insurance and attraction tickets are yours to arrange; see what the price buys for the line by line.

The full day-by-day plan is on the Southern France trip page, and more explanations like this one are in the guides.