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Vacation Rental App Wireframe

A vacation rental app wireframe template is a set of editable screens for a home-booking app: search by destination, dates and guests, map results, a listing page and checkout. Its 15 screens come from the Airbnb iOS app, from sign-up and the explore feed to filters, request to book, a pending stay, trips, wishlists and messages. It's free to duplicate and edit online in Whimsical as a starting point for vacation rental app design.

Airbnb's guest booking flow as editable wireframes, from the first search to a pending stay.

What's included

  • Three-step search. Where, when and who screens: suggested destinations, a calendar with Dates, Months and Flexible tabs, and counters for adults, children, infants and pets.
  • Results map and filters. Price pins on a map over a list of homes in New York, plus filters for Guest favorite, Instant Book, self check-in, free cancellation, pets and amenities.
  • Listing detail. Photos, a Guest favorite badge with a 4.99 rating from 239 reviews, the host's profile and a price bar with Request to book.
  • Request to book and pending stay. A choice between paying in full or part now, a cancellation policy, ground rules for guests, and a pending screen while the host has 24 hours to confirm.
  • Trips, wishlists and messages. An upcoming stay with check-in time and directions, saved lists like New York 2025, and an inbox split into Traveling, Hosting and Support.

Why wireframe a vacation rental app?

  • Make search feel short. Splitting where, when and who into three screens gives each question the full screen, and the Flexible tab covers guests who only know the month.
  • Show the price early. Price pins on the map and two-night totals on explore cards let guests compare before opening a listing. The explore screen labels those prices as including all fees.
  • Fix the listing page order. Guests can't see the place before they arrive, so the listing wireframe sets the order of photos, rating, reviews and host, and keeps the price bar with Request to book at the bottom.
  • Design for host approval. Request to book, the review step and the pending screen cover a stay that isn't confirmed yet, the state an instant confirmation skips.
  • Plan the time between booking and arrival. Trips, wishlists and messages are drawn too, and that's where guests spend their time until check-in.

How to use this template

  1. Duplicate the template. Copy the 15 Airbnb screens into your Whimsical workspace.
  2. Choose instant or request booking. Keep the request and pending screens if hosts approve stays, or replace them with a single confirmation screen.
  3. Fit the guest counter. Edit the who screen for your inventory, for example by dropping pets or adding a room count.
  4. Rewrite the filters. Swap the amenities and booking options for the ones your guests ask about, like ski-in access or a minimum stay.
  5. Sketch the host side. Draw what the host sees when a request arrives, next to the guest's pending screen.

Vacation rental app vs hotel booking app

A vacation rental app lists homes run by individual hosts, so no two listings match and guests lean on photos, reviews, house rules and host messages. A hotel booking app sells standardized rooms with rate plans and instant confirmation. Rental apps add steps a hotel app rarely needs, like request to book, host approval and a direct message thread with the host.

Frequently asked questions

  • Design a vacation rental app from search and the listing page outward, since that's where guests decide. Split search into destination, dates and guests, show total prices on results, and give the listing a fixed order of photos, rating, host and price. Then plan checkout, host approval, trips and messaging. This template has that flow laid out in Whimsical's wireframe editor.

  • It's a lo-fi study of Airbnb's iOS app, not Airbnb's own design file. We picked it because the Airbnb app design is familiar: guests know its three-step search and listing page from planning trips. Each of the 15 wireframes was drawn from a screenshot on Mobbin and sits next to it with a link to the source. Photos and branding are gray, and Whimsical isn't affiliated with Airbnb.

  • Yes. App Wireframe, the open-source agent skill that made this template from Airbnb's screens, works on other rental and hotel booking apps too. Name one and it pulls the key screens from Mobbin, then rebuilds each as an editable Whimsical wireframe beside its screenshot. It also takes your own screenshots or designs. It works from an AI agent that has the Whimsical MCP server, plus the Mobbin MCP server for pulling a named app's screens.

  • Instant book confirms the stay as soon as the guest pays. Request to book sends the reservation to the host to accept or decline, and Airbnb's help page on booking says hosts typically respond within 24 hours. That's why this template's request path has a review step, a note that the guest won't be charged until the host accepts, and a pending screen.

  • A vacation rental app should show the total with fees included, because cleaning and service fees can change which home is actually cheapest. The explore screen in this template labels its prices as including all fees. Airbnb's US pricing display now gives guests a fee-inclusive total before taxes on every listing, and US guests can no longer switch it off.