How to Add a Vacation Countdown Widget to Your iPhone Home Screen

To add a vacation countdown widget to your iPhone Home Screen: install a countdown app like Soonish, create your trip, then long-press the Home Screen, tap Edit → Add Widget, search for the app, choose a size, and tap Add Widget. The whole thing takes about a minute.

What you need first

You don't need a new phone or the latest iOS to do this — just an iPhone running iOS 15.1 or later, which covers the vast majority of iPhones still in daily use. Widgets have been part of the Home Screen since iOS 14, and Soonish supports them from iOS 15.1 onward, so if your phone can run the app, it can run the widget.

The one real prerequisite is that you need a countdown app installed with a trip already created in it. That's because a widget is just a small window into the app's data — it doesn't generate a countdown on its own, it displays one that already exists. Open Soonish, add your destination and travel date, and the widget will have something to show the moment you place it.

It's also worth knowing what you're choosing between before you get to the widget gallery. iOS offers three sizes for most widgets — small, medium, and large — and each one trades space for detail. Picking the right size up front saves you from swapping it out twice after you've already committed a spot on your Home Screen to it.

Add the widget, step by step

1. 1

   Install a countdown app and create your trip

   Download Soonish free, add your destination and travel date. Widgets need a countdown to display, so this comes first.

2. 2

   Long-press an empty area of your Home Screen

   Your apps start to jiggle — that's edit mode.

3. 3

   Tap Edit in the top-left corner, then Add Widget

   On older iOS versions this is a plus (+) button in the top corner.

4. 4

   Search for Soonish and pick a widget size

   Small shows the day count; medium and large add your destination photo and more detail.

5. 5

   Tap Add Widget, then Done

   Your vacation countdown now lives on your Home Screen and updates automatically.

Pick the right widget for your Home Screen

The small widget is the most glanceable option — just the number of days remaining, sized to sit next to your other app icons without crowding the screen. It's the right pick if you want the countdown present but don't want it to dominate the layout, or if your Home Screen is already busy with folders and frequently used apps.

The medium widget adds room for your destination photo alongside the date, so it reads more like a postcard than a stat. It takes up roughly the space of two app icons in width, which makes it a comfortable middle ground for most people setting up their first vacation countdown widget.

The large widget is the full anticipation experience — a bigger photo, the day count, and more detail about the trip, all in one block that anchors a whole section of your Home Screen. If your trip is the thing you're most looking forward to this year, it earns the space. Soonish also includes more than 20 themes, so whichever size you pick, you can match the widget's colors to your wallpaper instead of settling for a default that clashes.

Widgets are the whole point

A countdown that lives inside an app only helps if you remember to open the app. A countdown on your Home Screen helps automatically — you see it every time you unlock your phone to check the weather, reply to a text, or glance at the time, which for most people is dozens of times a day. That's the real advantage a widget has over even the best-designed in-app countdown screen: it doesn't wait for you to go looking for it.

Anticipation compounds when it's ambient like that. Seeing "23 days" once a day is a small, easy-to-ignore fact. Seeing it 50 times a day, each time next to a photo of where you're headed, turns the wait itself into something closer to enjoyable — a running reminder that the trip is getting closer, not just a date circled on a calendar you rarely open. Once the widget is on your Home Screen, the countdown does that work for you, every single time you pick up your phone.