Family Reunion/Trip Phone App

I want to feature a helpful FREE phone application for your next Family Reunion/Trip. We used this on our last Family Reunion/Ski Trip I have been writing about. It is called GroupMe. I thought it would be a good idea to have a place/app where the family could go to leave messages & photos without having to text in a group format and in a private manner. The majority of us have iPhones. However, the few who don’t have iPhones were able to use it by receiving the chat via text format. Pretty cool, huh?!

No making fun of other apps you see on here. 😉

When you create a group you can name it whatever you want. As you see above, I named ours Family Ski Trip. When you click on Family Ski Trip it will take you to the screen you see below. GroupMe makes it very easy to add friends to your group. You can find your friends via Facebook, Twitter, Email or Contacts/Text.

Above is a screen shot of the Chat section of the app. {Names are removed for privacy} You can add a profile pic as I did {in the account mode.} Otherwise you will see the GroupMe icon. I like how they will use different colors to differentiate between people talking. I configured the app to notify me when a family member chatted. Important: if you don’t want to receive the chats via text, make sure you turn off that option. If you don’t, you will receive both notifications in your text messages and on the app.

The above screen shot shows how you can share your photos with your family. Simple as clicking on the camera icon shown at the bottom left hand of the screen. When you click on the bottom bar {in between the camera & send} to type what you want to say and simply click send.

I didn’t figure out how to send our location, which would have been very helpful, until at the very end of our trip. Do you see the symbol {that looks like an exclamation mark without the dot underneath} at the bottom right hand corner in the bar by Send? This is the location mark. You click on that symbol and it will give your family members your exact location. They can click on it and it will show them on the Map portion the exact location. This is very helpful when you are trying to find someone or want to meet them somewhere.

Here’s a screen shot of the map portion above. The app uses Google Maps.

GroupMe is not made just for Family Reunion/Vacation purposes. You can use it to make all sorts of groups for private chatting. Some of their suggested groups are Best Friends, Coworkers, Night Out, Roommates.

FYI: If you are going to Pagosa Springs, Colorado and are using AT&T as we do, be warned you will not have internet availability on a constant basis. As a matter of fact, it was difficult to have a signal and use our phones for calling/texting period. However, we were able to use this app {more often than not} when we weren’t able to call or text and was very helpful.