Does your phone work between islands?

Often not. Coverage between islands and around smaller coves is patchy or absent, so assume you will be offline for stretches. Anything that needs to be agreed should be agreed on the boat or on shore where there is signal.

How do you keep a group together on an island hopping tour?

Fix the boat departure time at every single stop and repeat it out loud before anyone gets off. The boat is the one thing everyone must return to, so the time, not the place, is what holds the group together.

What should you do if you get separated on a small island?

Go back to where the boat is moored and wait there. Islands are small enough that the landing point is always findable, and it is the one place the whole group will return to anyway.

Island hopping with a group without losing anyone

Island hopping is a lovely day and a coordination trap. You are moving between places with no addresses, no street names, and frequently no signal, on a schedule set by a boat, with a group that scatters the moment it touches sand.

The good news is that the structure of the day gives you the solution for free.

The boat is the meeting point

Everything about keeping a group together on an island hopping trip reduces to one thing: the boat, and the time it leaves.

At every stop, before anyone gets off:

Say the departure time out loud. Not “about an hour” - an actual time.
Have everyone repeat it. This is not over-cautious; it is the single highest-value thirty seconds of the day.
Point at where the boat is moored, and note a landmark next to it, because boats move and shorelines look similar.
Agree what happens if someone is late, with the boatman as well as the group.

If anyone loses the group on a small island, the answer is always the same: go back to the boat. It is the one place everyone is returning to.

Plan for being offline

Between islands and around smaller coves, expect no signal at all.

Agree the day’s plan on shore, before departure, while everyone has data.
Screenshot the itinerary, the boat operator’s number, and your accommodation’s name and location.
Take a photo of the boat and, if you can, the boatman, on the first stop. Boats at a landing point look remarkably alike after the third island.
Agree a regroup time for the end of the day, at your accommodation, in case things go wrong.

Water, phones, and sun

Dry bags for everything electronic. Not optional on a bangka in open water.
Nominate one group phone to stay dry and charged, held by whoever is not swimming.
Power banks in a dry bag. No charging on a boat, and heat plus constant signal-hunting drains phones fast.
Agree who is watching the bags on each beach.

Safety notes worth stating

Check the weather and listen to the boatman. If they say conditions are not good, that is not a negotiation.
Count the group onto the boat and off it, every single time. Out loud. Buddy pairs make this quick.
Life jackets on for crossings, particularly for weak swimmers and children.
Know roughly where you are going - the names of the islands and the general route - so you could describe it if you needed to.

Where Nearby fits

We build Nearby, and this is another case where the honest answer includes a big caveat: between islands you will often have no data, so live positions will not update. The boat time and the counting are the real system.

Where it helps is at the ends of the day and on the bigger stops: a group converging on the port in the morning from different accommodations, or spread across a larger island with a couple of beaches and a restaurant. Drop a pin on the landing point, share one link, and everyone can navigate back to the boat - including travellers on iPhones with no roaming, who just open the link in a browser.

For the wider no-roaming problem, see sharing your location abroad. For getting the group out of the city in the first place, the barkada guide covers that.

The island hopping checklist

Say the boat departure time at every stop; everyone repeats it.
Point at the boat and note a landmark beside it.
Count the group on and off, every time.
Screenshot the itinerary and the operator’s number.
Dry bags, one dry group phone, power banks.
If separated, go back to the boat.

Nearby is free on Google Play, and the group joins from any browser at the port.