MasaApps360
English
Countdown

Vacation countdown app with a widget: days until your trip

Create an event with the Travel category, set the departure date, turn on Include Time for the flight hour. From there it counts down to take-off on its own, a free widget puts the days on your Home Screen or Lock Screen, and a reminder nudges you before you leave.

3 min read · Updated 2026-09-15

Download on the App Store

Why count down to the flight, not the day?

A trip starts the moment the plane leaves, not at midnight. Count to the departure time and your last evening shows hours to go, not a flat zero days. It also means a reminder tied to the flight actually lands somewhere useful, like the evening before you fly.

Set up a trip countdown

  1. Tap + to open New Countdown.
  2. Tap the Travel category (a plane emoji) or Holiday (a palm tree).
  3. Type a Title such as the destination, and use Subtitle for the flight number.
  4. Pick the departure day, turn on Include Time and set the flight time.
  5. Turn on Reminders and choose one chip, for example 1 day.
  6. Tap Save, then add a Countdown widget to your Lock Screen.

Worked example: a December flight

Flight on Friday, December 18, 2026 at 7:45 AM, New York time, checked on Saturday, September 26, 2026 at 9:00 AM.

Countdown and reminders for a 7:45 AM flight on December 18, 2026
ItemValue
Time left on Sep 26, 9:00 AM82 days 23 h 45 min 0 s
Reminder 7 days beforeFri, Dec 11, 2026, 7:45 AM
Reminder 1 day beforeThu, Dec 17, 2026, 7:45 AM
Reminder 12 hours beforeThu, Dec 17, 2026, 7:45 PM
Widget on the morning of the flight0 days

23 hours there, not 22 — the reason: clocks go back an hour on November 1, and the app counts real time, which runs an hour longer than the clock faces alone would suggest.

Free plan, one reminder. Pro, pick all of them.

What happens to reminders when you change time zones?

Each one's scheduled as a fixed stretch of time before the flight, not a clock time. Fly somewhere else before it's due and it still fires at the same real moment — your phone just displays that moment in whatever local time it's on.

Which is exactly what you want for a flight: the plane doesn't wait on your time zone. One side effect — a reminder set 30 days out can show a different hour on the clock if a daylight saving change happens to fall in between.

Keep the trip in view

Medium Home Screen widget: emoji, title, date, days left. Inline Lock Screen one: all of that squeezed above the clock in a single line. Both just show your soonest event, which a coming trip almost always is.

Common mistakes

  • Leaving Include Time off. The event still ends at some time of day — just not your flight's.
  • Setting a reminder whose moment has already gone by. It's simply skipped, no error shown.
  • Expecting one event to also track the flight home. Make a second event for that.

Questions and answers

Is there a free vacation countdown app for iPhone with a widget?
Yes — free plan covers 3 events and every widget size, both screens, with ads. Pro removes the event cap and adds more reminders.
Does the trip countdown work offline, on the plane?
Yes, the count runs entirely on-device. Only ads and purchases need a connection at all.
Can I see the trip countdown in hours on the last day?
Open the event in the app and Large gives you days, hours, minutes and seconds. The widgets stick to whole days only.

You might also like

More Countdown guides