You open the group chat. 347 unread messages. Your heart sinks.
Somewhere in there is the answer to "what time are we meeting?" But you'll have to scroll past forty messages about the weather, a debate about whether to bring a tarp, someone's meme, three people saying "lol", and a fifteen-message tangent about a different trip entirely.
You know this feeling. We all do.
The scroll of doom
WhatsApp groups have no structure. Everything is chronological. A critical logistics update sits between someone's lunch photo and a string of thumbs-up emojis.
Need to find the GPX file someone shared? Good luck. It was three weeks ago, probably on a Tuesday, and it might have been in this group or the other one or maybe they DM'd it.
You scroll. And scroll. And eventually give up and ask again, which starts a new thread of "it's already in the chat" and "just search for it" and now there are twelve more messages that aren't the GPX file.
Important information gets buried
"Hey everyone, the meeting point has changed to the north carpark."
That message has about a four-hour half-life. After that, it's buried. Anyone who wasn't checking their phone during that window might never see it.
So you get the "did everyone see the message about..." follow-up. Which spawns a dozen replies. Which buries the original message even further.
This cycle repeats for every important update. By the end of trip planning, vital information is scattered across hundreds of messages, and the only way to be sure you haven't missed anything is to read them all.
Nobody reads them all.
The mute problem
There's always someone who mutes the group because it's too noisy. Fair. But then they miss everything.
"I didn't see that" becomes a recurring theme. You can't blame them - who wants fifty notifications a day about stuff that's mostly not relevant to them? But you also can't plan a trip when half the group isn't getting the updates.
You end up with a two-tier system: people who read everything and people who read nothing. Neither is great.
Multiple groups for the same trip
First there's the main group. Then someone creates a "logistics only" group because the main one is too chatty. Then there's a splinter group for the people doing the harder route variant. Then someone who left the main group needs to be added back but now there's history they've missed.
You're now managing the trip across three WhatsApp groups and you're not entirely sure which one has the final version of the plan.
No way to track confirmations
"Who's definitely coming?"
This question generates twenty replies. Half of them are "yes". A few are "depends on weather". One is "what day is it again?". Someone sends a GIF.
You still don't have a clear headcount. You count the "yes" replies manually, cross-reference with who hasn't said anything, send direct messages to the quiet ones, and eventually arrive at a number that's probably right.
Next week someone asks the same question and the whole thing starts again.
WhatsApp is good for some things
Quick day-of coordination. "Running 10 mins late." "Where are you?" "Turn left at the cairn." That stuff works perfectly in a chat.
Real-time, in-the-moment communication is what WhatsApp was built for. It's excellent at it.
But trip planning isn't real-time. It happens over weeks. It involves structured information - gear lists, meal plans, itineraries, costs - that needs to stay findable and updateable.
Chat is the wrong shape for that.
The planning-communication split
Here's the thing: planning and communication are different activities.
Planning is about building and maintaining a shared understanding of what's happening. It's structured. It needs to be persistent and searchable.
Communication is about discussing, deciding, and coordinating in the moment. It's fluid. It can be ephemeral.
WhatsApp is great for communication. It's rubbish for planning. Using it for both means planning suffers.
You know this already
You've experienced the frustration. You've scrolled through endless messages looking for one piece of information. You've asked "did everyone see..." multiple times. You've wondered if there's a better way.
There is. Keep WhatsApp for what it's good at - the banter, the quick updates, the last-minute coordination. Put the actual planning somewhere that understands what planning looks like.
Your group chat will thank you. Or at least, it'll have fewer messages asking where the gear list is.