Deploy and Host TREK (NOMAD) on Railway

About Hosting

TREK (formerly NOMAD) is a self-hosted travel planning platform designed for collaborative trip organization. It supports shared itineraries, interactive maps, bookings, budgeting, packing lists, file uploads, and realtime updates. Railway is a managed deployment platform that makes it easy to run Docker-based applications with public networking, HTTPS, and environment-variable configuration.

Tech Stack

• Backend: Node.js 22 + Express
• Database: SQLite (better-sqlite3)
• Frontend: React + Vite
• Realtime: WebSocket (/ws)
• Container Image: mauriceboe/nomad:2.6.2

Why Deploy on Railway

• Supports direct Docker image deployment without needing a custom build pipeline
• Provides built-in HTTPS and public domains out of the box
• Makes configuration simple through environment variables
• Works well for quick self-hosted app launches and reusable templates
• Reduces infrastructure setup complexity for small to medium deployments

Common Use Cases

• Family or group trip planning with shared editing
• Team travel coordination with booking and file management
• Personal itinerary, checklist, and travel budget tracking
• Self-hosted replacement for commercial travel planning tools

Deployment Notes

• This setup uses the upstream Docker image from Docker Hub
• The application listens on port 3000
• HTTP traffic should be routed to container port 3000
• Persistent storage should be mounted at /app/data for SQLite data and application state
• Upload storage at /app/uploads may remain ephemeral depending on the platform volume setup
• WebSocket support should remain enabled for realtime collaboration features

Dependencies for TREK (NOMAD) on Railway

Deployment Dependencies