Set your Scout preferences

Settings, under Scout & prefs, is where you tell Scout how you travel: pace, budget, diet, accessibility, who comes along and how it talks. It works on every plan, Free included, and Scout reads it with every message on every trip, including one you pasted in after planning with ChatGPT or Claude.

Where it is

Scout & prefs sits between Privacy and Data in Settings, and the Settings search finds any row by name. The Getting started row Tell Scout how you travel opens it directly. Edit profile shows your picks on its Travel preferences row, which opens this tab. Sign-up asks none of this, so until you set it, Scout knows nothing about you.

What each setting does

• Travel profile: Pace, Budget style, Travelling as, Interests, and a Note for Scout of up to 280 characters.
• Recommendations: Dietary, with a field for allergies, Accessibility (Step-free access, Less walking), Must-avoids, and the Travelling with kids and Travelling with pets switches.
• Behaviour: Response style, Tone and Weather sensitivity, plus the Apply changes automatically and Use my location switches. Weather sensitivity only acts on a dated day within 16 days, the reach of the forecast.
• Access: Vault access, which lets Scout read your Travel Data records and document titles, and Clear Scout history, which wipes the chats saved on this device.

Everything here saves to your account and follows you to every device, except Use my location and your chat threads, which stay on the device where you set them. Dietary and accessibility answers stay off your public profile and away from your trip-mates, but each Scout message sends your set preferences (and, with Vault access on, your Travel Data records) to Google's Vertex AI, the service behind Scout.

With a diet set, Scout checks before it picks a restaurant. It reads the menu on the restaurant's own website, then falls back to how Google lists the place and what reviews say, and each card says which it found, with a See menu link and the date it checked. A menu with nothing for your diet is left out. When Scout couldn't check, the card says so. Menus can't show cross-contact, so with allergies set, Scout reminds you to tell your server, and it never calls a place safe for an allergy. Your diet words may go into Scout's place searches on Google Maps, with nothing that identifies you.

What each plan gets

Apply changes automatically, which skips Scout's Apply changes tap, works on Pro, $4.99 CAD a month, and Discovery, $9.99 CAD a month; on Free the row carries a Pro tag and opens the upgrade sheet instead. Vault access only takes effect on Discovery, the plan with a Travel Data vault to read. Every other row works the same on every plan. Once it is set, Get better answers from Scout covers how to ask.

Common questions

Where do I set my Scout preferences?

In Settings, under Scout & prefs, on every plan. The Getting started row Tell Scout how you travel opens it directly, and so does the Travel preferences row in Edit profile.

Can other people see my dietary or accessibility answers?

No. They are readable only by your own account and left off your public profile, though they do reach Google Vertex AI with each Scout message.

How do I make Scout give shorter replies?

Set Response style to Concise in the Behaviour panel. Scout then aims for under 35 words, with places still arriving as cards, and Tone set to Direct also leads with the recommendation.

Does Scout use my location?

Only when Use my location is switched on. It is off by default, remembered on the device you set it on, and a place you pick under Near a place in Scout options still wins over it.