Export and integrations

Route Planner is not intended to replace every other map tool. It is used for planning, then sends the result to the right tool for the right purpose.

Export options

Share project

Used to send the full project to another person or device.

Import project

Used to load a shared project again.

Export to Excel

Useful for printing, travel binders, offline backup or traditional in-car planning.

Open in Google Maps

Useful when the route should be used for navigation during the trip.

Export to Google My Maps

Useful for visualizing the whole trip, documenting the plan or sharing an overview with others.

Free and premium

Waybound Studio has two modes, and the difference isn't a paywall – it's which map data the app is allowed to ask.

The free tier

Off by default. The app then runs entirely on open services: OpenRouteService for routing, Trafikverket NVDB for official rest areas and Waybound Open Places for everything else. No Google key is used at all.

The route planner works fully at this level. It isn't a taster – it's the whole planner, proven live on real trips.

Premium mode

You switch it on in the app's system menu, and it requires your own Google Maps key. The app has no shared key for you to borrow. What it buys:

• Better place judgement, which is what Travel Guide needs in order to say what is worth seeing
• More realistic road calculations via Google Directions
• The Avoid the same road feature, which is skipped on the free tier

The order the sources are asked in

This is the part that's easy to miss: premium mode doesn't replace the open sources, it joins the back of the queue.

1. Trafikverket is asked first, where there is coverage. Official rest areas with registered facilities, free of charge, but Sweden only.
2. Waybound Open Places fills in where Trafikverket doesn't reach — Norway, for instance. Free of charge.
3. Google is used only when the first two have no place to offer.

The consequence is that a Google key doesn't make the app more expensive to run than it needs to be. Each switch can also be turned off on its own, and the app explains the cost and coverage next to every one of them.

Keeping an eye on cost

API usage in the system menu shows estimated consumption for the month, what the next calculation is expected to cost in calls, and how many hits came from cache rather than a fresh call. The app is clear that the figure is a local estimate — the real billing lives in Google Cloud.

On the free tier the app instead shows how many calls against the open services you have left for the day.

The key, and where it lives

The key is stored in your browser. If you choose to sync it to your account it is stored in the app's database in clear text, protected by the fact that only your account can reach it — the app says so plainly in the interface rather than letting you assume otherwise. Keep Google's own key restrictions switched on whichever you choose.

Travel Guide

Travel Guide is for when you roughly know what you're longing for but not exactly where to go. It doesn't hand you a finished trip — it builds one with you, one leg at a time.

How it works

You describe the frame once: a direction or a country, the themes you want the trip to be full of, where the adventure starts, whether it should be a round trip, and roughly how far apart the sights should be.

Travel Guide then searches for verified places and drops them as pins on the map. You pick one pin at a time.

Leg by leg, not all at once

This is what separates Travel Guide from an ordinary search box: it's a conversation, not an answer.

1. Search. Travel Guide fetches candidates and tells you how long it took. If it finds no verified places it says so plainly, and shows approximate compass pins instead.
2. Look at a candidate. Each pin opens a card with a photo, a description of the place, distance, an approximate number of days and an estimated cost — plus which of your themes it matched.
3. Confirm the destination. The leg is then added to the trip so far: confirmed days, kilometres and cost.
4. Continue or finish. New candidates fan out from the place you just chose. When the trip feels complete you press Time to head home.
5. Hand over. Add to the route planner moves the whole destination list across. Travel Guide gives you the direction; the route planner works out the exact route when you press Calculate route.

Honest about the numbers

The days and the cost Travel Guide shows along the way are estimates, meant to help you choose between two candidates. The exact route, vehicle and breaks are the route planner's job — and may well land differently.

What it needs

Travel Guide is part of premium mode. It needs Google's place data to judge what is worth seeing, and therefore requires your own Google key. Without one the app says so plainly and points you at the route planner instead, which works as usual on the free tier.

Route Planner

Route Planner is the main view where the trip is built, adjusted, analyzed and prepared for real-world use.

Purpose

Route Planner combines destinations, waypoints, overnight stops, lunches, rests, fuel stops or charging stops into a day-by-day travel plan.

User value

Instead of only calculating a route from A to B, Route Planner helps the user understand the whole journey:

• how the days are distributed
• where stops are placed
• total driving time
• included destinations
• how the vehicle profile affects the plan
• when the route is ready for export

Core areas

• Destination list
• Map
• Day filters
• Travel plan
• Collapsible panels
• Vehicle profile
• Travel rules
• Analysis
• Export

System and diagnostics

The system area collects settings, API connections, issue reporting and diagnostics.

Purpose

The system view helps the user and administrator understand how the application is configured and collect troubleshooting information.

Features

• Visual theme setting
• Google Directions on/off
• Google Places on/off
• Google Maps API key
• Issue reporting
• My reports
• Admin view for all reports
• Admin view for error logs
• System information

User value

When something goes wrong, the user can report the issue with a description and screenshot. Admins can then review reports, logs and system information in a format that can be copied into troubleshooting.

System functions

These are functions that belong to Waybound Studio as a whole rather than to any single module. They live together in the System tab and the system menu.

Sign-in, and where your trips live

Cloud sign-in is not a route-planner feature – it decides where your projects and settings are stored for the whole suite, and several modules use it to reach the active project.

Four ways in:

• Continue with Google or Continue with Microsoft – quickest, no new sign-in to remember.
• Email and password – if you'd rather keep the travel account separate from your everyday ones.
• Continue locally – no sign-in at all. Projects and settings are then bound to that browser, and move between devices via the `.json` export on the Export card.

Deletion is self-service: Delete account is in the app, not behind an email to us.

Colour theme

22 named colour themes, from the calm Sand, Moss and Rest to the dark Asphalt, Pathfinder and Overlander. The preview updates immediately, so you see background, primary and accent before committing.

Design theme

Ten themes governing type and shape – buttons, cards, framing – chosen independently of the colour theme. Each has its own tone: Pathfinder is direct and technical, Nomad calm, Campfire warm, Vanlifer everyday. So you can run Sand colours with Pathfinder shapes, or the other way round.

API usage

A view of its own showing estimated consumption, a risk assessment, and how large a share of calls were answered from cache rather than costing a fresh one. See Free and premium for what actually costs anything.

Export and sharing

The Export card gathers the ways out of the app: the whole project as a file, Excel, Google Maps, Google My Maps – and Share the trip as a story, which is the way into Happy Trails.

Settings and parameters

A single lookup section for every setting a traveller can actually control, module by module. For anyone who already knows what they're looking for, rather than wanting to read a guide from the start.

The trip profile's three traveller preferences

Set in the Trip Profile dialog and reach all three place sources (Trafikverket, WB Open Places, Google) – they filter actual search results, not just the search text.

• Meal-stop style: homemade or store-bought – controls which kind of rest and lunch stop gets suggested.
• Overnight style: wild camping or paid camping – controls which kind of overnight spot gets suggested.
• Facility requirements: a list, for example toilets – what a soft stop must have to count.

A stated preference widens the search rather than settling for a worse result of the wrong kind – the app would rather drive the extra mile to civilization than hand you a place you didn't ask for.

Route Planner – trip rules

• Start time and end time for driving.
• Maximum driving per day.
• Breaks and lunch: how often and how long.
• Search precision for stops along the way.

Route Planner – vehicle profiles

One vehicle at a time, with type (diesel, EV, motorhome), consumption, range, tank/charge size and cost. Multiple vehicles can be saved and switched between.

Travel Guide

• Steering: direction or a specific country.
• Seven themes to combine: coast & beaches, mountains & views, forest & nature, history & culture, active & family, city & shopping, calm & secluded.
• Round trip on/off, given destination, distance between sights.

Happy Trails – narrative voice

Chosen per share, not as an app-wide setting: The Logbook (matter-of-fact diary tone), The Pirate (colourful), The Bureaucrat (dry and formal). The voice quotes a place's source, but never oversells it.

Car Bingo – board and theme

• The seed (free text or randomized) determines which 16 tiles your board gets from the tile pool.
• Custom board: swap any tiles for your own subjects and points, share with a code.
• Light/dark mode follows the phone's system setting automatically – no separate toggle.

Explorer – starting point

Default location or "Use my location." No other settings – the round is otherwise identical every time.

Quests

No traveller settings. The catalogue (twelve quests today) is edited only by the product owner.

Android Auto

Inherits the account and settings from the phone app. No settings of its own on the car screen – just sign-in and location permission, both handled on the phone.