travel recorder app

10 Best Travel Journal Apps to Organize Your Travel Memories

As a digital nomad or frequent traveler, you likely want to keep a log of your travel activities. But what and how you record is a very personal experience.

You may want to write extensively about your experiences and feelings and keep them private. If so, you are probably better off with a paper journal and a pen.

Or maybe, you want to log the most important moments, photos, and travel routes and share them with your family and friends. In that case, a digital travel journal makes more sense.

Perhaps you’re an Instagram Influencer or blogger and want to keep copious notes for future posts/reels.

No matter your reason, if you’re looking for a travel journal app to maintain a digital log, this list of the 10 best travel journal apps will help you find the one that suits your needs.

Let’s start!

Table of Contents

10 Best Travel Journal Apps

1. day one journal.

With a Twitter-like interface, the Day One Journal is about capturing the important moments of your trip. The app can collect data such as location, weather, and music, for your travel photos and videos.

You can use this app as a digital diary and write using your finger or Apple Pencil and quickly comb through the entries using photos, timeline, or calendar. It even accepts voice commands.

This travel journal app can record fine details such as temperature, moon phase, weather, address, etc.

A free version is available, but upgrading to the premium version gives unlimited journal entries, photo storage, cloud sync, audio recording, and 25% off on book printing (if at some point you’d love to create a printed book of your adventures).

Platforms Supported:

• Apple Watch
• Safari and Chrome browser extensions

Cost: $2.92 per month billed annually.

Perfect for: Anyone looking for an online version of a standard journal that can also include images, voice recordings and track your locations

2. Find Penguins

One of the top digital travel journals, Find Penguins uses GPS tracking and AI to automatically track your journeys.

It also updates temperature, weather, altitude, etc., giving you a quick snapshot of the conditions on a particular day.

All the data that the app gathers is then displayed in a fun way on an interactive map as a trail and posts.

Find Penguins refers to those posts as footprints that are essentially blog posts where you can attach photos, videos, and texts as diary entries.

If you want, you can order a printed photo journal complete with maps, photos, and footprints.

Cost : Free with in-app purchases. You can buy a monthly or yearly subscription for $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year respectively.

Perfect for: Anyone who needs the best travel journal app for automatic journey tracking.

3. Polarsteps

If you need a completely free travel journal app that not only helps you to plan and track your journeys but also doubles up as a digital travel diary, Polarsteps is one of the top travel diary apps you can find.

It comes complete with an editable itinerary planner and transport planner. It even plots and automatically tracks your path on a digital world map.

You are free to add thoughts, videos, and photos. If you want, you can leave tips for the traveling community, or retrace your steps by scrolling through your travel stats, photos, and places.

The app also supports printing a hardcover travel book with just a touch of a button. The best part? It works offline and allows you to manually add journal entries that can later sync when the internet is available.

Perfect for: Anyone looking for a free travel tracker app that can track the travel route and keep the family informed!

Momento is more than just a travel journal app. It can double up as a project/work journal, pregnancy journal, or private journal.

This app can organize and streamline your social network activities from 11 social platforms. You can add photos & videos, tag your fellow travelers and places you visit , and even record your pregnancy journey!

Momento can also give daily, monthly, or yearly visual summaries, and allow you to explore past timelines.

Cost: Free with in-app purchases for paid upgrades.

Perfect for: People who need a multi-purpose digital journal that works not only as an online travel journal but also as a private and/or work journal.

5. Journi Blog

Journi Blog is a unique photo journaling app that you can use to record your travel experiences as timelines and maps or even have them printed as a photo book to show off to your friends and family members.

Whether you have a travel blog where you write about your vacations and travels, or whether you are maintaining personal travel diaries or recording your kids’ photo album, Journi Blog helps to capture all the moments and stories.

With this travel diary app, you can create a public travel journal or create a private journal entry.

Cost : Free with in-app premium membership purchase options. Membership costs €9.99 for one month, €43.99 for 6 months, and €53.99 for one year.

Perfect for: Those who want a photo journaling app.

Penzu isn’t particularly designed to be a travel journal app. In fact, it is more of a reflective journal meant for note-keeping and milestone tracking. However, it can be used as a pregnancy journal, a food diary, and even a travel diary.

It will give you the feel of maintaining an online travel blog with the ability to add images, add photos, and write your travel stories. You can use custom tags to categorize your travel logs.

Penzu has an incredibly simple interface where you can record beautiful memories of your entire trip.

Cost : Free, Pro for $19.99 a year, and Pro+ for $49.99 a year.

Perfect for : Anyone who needs a private online journal or a digital diary with syncing ability across the web and multiple mobile devices.

7. Tripcast

Tripcast is one of the favorite travel journal apps for many users worldwide. The app is perfect to keep your friends and family members updated about your journey.

With Tripcast, you can create shared photo albums where your fellow travelers can upload and share photos they click and store them in a single place.

The app uses photo geotagging to create a map of the places you visit.

Cost: Free!

Perfect for: Those who are on a group vacation, or participating in volunteer projects.

8. Journey: Diary, Journal

Journey was listed as the Google Editors’ choice in the best travel apps category. Just like other travel diaries, Journey will help you to maintain a travel journal complete with texts, audio files, images, and videos.

You can also use this dedicated app to add location and weather details to all your journal entries.

If you want, you can download and keep your entries private on your computer. Alternatively, you can export them as PDF or DOCX files for easy sharing.

Journey is not just a simple travel journal app. It is a multi-purpose app that allows users to record anything they want such as a stress management journey, sleep journey, better habits development journey, and so on.

Cost : Journey is a free app, but there is an in-app membership purchase option for $3.99 a month or $29.99 a year.

Perfect for: Those who need a multi-purpose journal app that can also be used as a digital travel diary.

Diarium is another great app that allows maintaining a travel journal using a calendar interface.

You can quickly attach texts, audio files, and images, and even tag multiple entries in a single day.

There is an option of adding a sitemap with location info. Plus, the app will display a wide range of data including your fitness data, weather info, and calendar events.

You can easily export entries in HTML or DOCX formats. Journal entry is possible using a laptop, PC, mobile, or tablet.

Cost: Diarium is free, but offers in-app purchases. You can purchase a lifetime pro version for $5.99.

Perfect for : Those who want a travel journal app without committing to a monthly or yearly subscription.

10. Worldee Trip Planner & Journal

Worldee is a popular digital travel diary that not only allows you to organize and store your travel memories.

You can mark the countries visited on an interactive world map, add timelines, photos, and maps, and even share your trips.

You can share your stories with other travelers or you can keep everything private. The app will also help you to plan your next trip using the integrated trip planner.

With the trip planner, you can set your itinerary and travel map on the same screen and then share your trip details with your travel partners.

Cost: The app is completely free to use.

Perfect for: Those who want a completely free digital travel journal.

More Journal Apps to Consider

1. trotter it.

Trotter It is a digital travel journal app that allows you to create and share travel stories with travelers across the world. It also doubles up as a social networking app for travelers. The app is available only through Google Play Store and is completely free to use.

2. Jauntlet

A mix of a travel journal and a free travel blog, Jauntlet allows you to present your trips in a neat timeline. The app connects with Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and imports photos from different profiles.

You can add the location to a post to add it to the map and write your story. Jauntlet is a web application that offers a platform-independent mobile site.

3. Esplorio

A beautiful and interactive travel journal app, Esplorio can record trips even without a data connection. You can choose what to share publicly and what to keep private.

It easily integrates with social platforms to retrieve previous journeys. The app is free but there is a pro plan available for $49.99 per year. It is available on iOS devices and through a web app.

4. Traverous

Traverous is an automated travel journal application that uses GPS data to track and record your trip. It also records media and location to create a personalized animated travel diary. The app is free to use but to unleash its full potential, you will need a premium account that costs $4.99 a month or $54.99 a year. The app is available for both iOS and Android devices.

How to Choose the Best Online Journal App

Choosing the best online journal app can be tricky. They’re all so good and you need to pick one that does everything you want it to.

Here are a few tips on choosing the best online journal app:

• Ease of use : The app you select should be straightforward and easy to use. An overly complex app will only make your life difficult.
• Mobile apps : Since you will mostly be traveling with your phone or ipad, the app must have versions for either iOS or Android or both. However, digital nomads traveling with laptops can always use web apps.
• Social features : The app you select must be able to integrate with social platforms. If the app has a built-in community feature, it is even better, especially for group tours and backpackers.
• History : The company developing the app must have a proven history of offering digital journaling services. You will not want to use it only to see that it is no longer under development.
• Cost : The app you select must be cheap. Expensive subscription plans can put budgetary pressure.
• Security: If you want your journal entries to be private you need to ensure the app has end to end encryption services.

Best Travel Journal Apps FAQs

Is there a free journaling app.

Yes, there are a few free travel journal apps available today. While some are dedicated digital travel diaries, others are all-purpose digital journals that can be used for keeping travel records.

Day One Journal has a free version, Polarsteps is completely free, Penzu has a free version and Tripcast is free. Try them out and see which one you like the best!

What’s the best app to track everywhere I’ve traveled?

Most of the digital travel diaries listed above can track every place you have traveled . Apps like Day One Journal and Find Penguins can not only track the places you visit but also add additional data like weather, temperature, altitude, address, and more.

Best Travel Journal Apps Summary

Digital travel diaries or journal apps are immensely beneficial (and fun) as they help to organize your travel experiences and keep your memories stored in a single place.

They will allow you to add written notes, images, videos, audio files, tags, etc., and help you to easily share your experiences with friends and family, or other users.

For digital nomads or influencers, some come with customizable layouts for enhanced personalization and some will even allow you to blog automatically and share moments of your trips with your readers.

Try a few out and select the one that is within your budget and meets your needs the best. Hopefully, this list of the best travel journal apps will assist you in finding an awesome journal for your travels! 🙂

Disclaimer: Please note this post may contain affiliate links, from which, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Also as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I only recommend products and services I’ve used or would use myself. If you choose to purchase from any of my links, thanks so much for your support! 😊

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A Little Journal… These Digital Travel Diary Apps Are Worth Your Time

Last updated on January 4, 2024 by Shannon

As travel enthusiasts, we yearn to capture the essence of extraordinary travel moments and freeze them in time. We even want those mundane details preserved—what was the name of that hilarious taxi driver who shuttled you from the airport to your guesthouse?

If you’ve logged those details in a travel journal, you don’t have to remember—that’s where travel journaling apps come in, offering a digital travel scrapbook that easily documents even the craziest travel adventures.

I’ve been traveling the world for 15 years, writing, photographing, and sharing my travel stories from the first day. That means I have pretty high expectations when it comes to using digital travel diaries meant to preserve the memories of your expeditions. Here’s what you need to know about the best online travel journal apps available.

Table of Contents

What are Digital Travel Diaries?

While journaling about your travels via a paper notebook used to be called a travel log, the more modern equivalent is an online travel journaling app. That said, even diary app is just a new way to log the most important moments of your travels—and the mundane ones too.

Travel journals essential just document your experiences, capturing your memories as you travel the world. By logging your travel memories in real time via a journaling app, you ensure the smaller details are captured.

Was it a torrential downpour on the day you had booked an “any-weather” tour of the Norwegian fjords? Log that and then share how you felt at that very moment, otherwise the details fade with time.

That’s the real magic of keeping a travel log in any form, a beloved notebook, an app, or a blog. I’ve used all three over my 15+ years of travel. This travel blog was my primary travel log, but at times I’ve used these travel apps to capture moments more immediately.

And no matter my online travel journal app of choice, I always, always have a small physical journal. Even if you diligently record all of the best moments of your trip in your digital travel diary app, you should also carry a small travel journal that acts as your travel log—you use it to jot down funny off-the-cuff moments, or even just mundane details.

Perhaps you press between the pages ticket stubs, a pretty flower from your world wanders, and other small memorabilia that can’t be captured in a journaling app. It becomes a place to log currency conversions you can surreptitiously glance at when haggling at a market, or jot down lists and travel plans.

I never travel without a pocket Field Notes waterproof notebook and this Moleskine travel journal —its these two things that have allowed me to share such rich details on this blog, my personal travel log that’s been running 15 years and counting.

How to Choose an Online Travel Journal App

Travel journal apps are not one-size-fits-all. The best apps offer the exact range of features you need and at a price point you can afford—which can mean free! Many journaling apps offer a free version that may just meet your needs. Often its the more sophisticated features that require a paid upgrade.

Given that you’re probably snowed under travel planning, don’t waste your time downloading every travel diary app here. To pick the right app for your travels, consider these things before you download it:

When choosing an online travel diary app, there are several factors to consider that can help you find the one that best fits your needs. Here are some tips to help you make a decision:

• Features : Review what the journaling app actually does—what are the key features these app developers believe are the hallmarks of their app? That will tell you a lot about functionality. Standard features of most digital travel diaries include: text entry, photo and video uploading, geotagging, and weather data. Decide which features are important to you and ensure that the app provides them. Maybe you want an awesome map interface because you’re hopscotching around the world for a year ? Or you’re studying abroad you might want an app with more functionality around text and photo entries.
• Platform Compatibility : Check if the digital journaling app is available on your preferred platforms, such as iOS, Android, web-based, and desktop. If you’re bringing both a smartphone and laptop on your travels , you may wan a travel diary app that seamlessly switches between the two devices.
• Syncing and Backup : Consider whether the app offers syncing and backup options—and if those are free or paid features. You want access your travel diary across multiple devices, and you want it securely backed up to the cloud.
• Export and Sharing Options : If you plan to share your travel diary with others or would like to have a backup of your entries outside of the app, check if it offers export options, such as PDF or other file formats.
• Company Story : If the travel journaling app you’re considering using hasn’t been around for at least two-to-five years, run in the other direction. Companies, especially app makers, fold quickly. The last thing you want is an email saying you have a matter of days to download your cherished memories before they’re all deleted.

Best Travel Journaling Apps

Day One tops most of these lists because it’s actually that good—and it’s been around since 2011, so you know your travel memories are safe with this online diary app. The company has invested in a high-quality product, and updates over the years have responded to user reviews and feedback—which is enthusiastic across the board.

Its clean interface and seamless integration with iOS (both iPhones and Macs) and Android make it a joy to use. You can effortlessly capture each destination through text and photos, while popping in location data too.

Best app features : The “On This Day” functionality is neat because it doesn’t pull in the best of anything, but rather that exact moment years ago when you were on an incredible adventure out there in the world—or maybe you had logged a tasty hot chocolate at a hipster spot near that landmark you were visiting.

Either way, you’ll be transported back there in an instant and that app feature is maybe one of the strongest motivators to journal about all the big (and small) things that happen as you travel.

Cost : The free version is enough to see if you like it, but if you’re using this as your main digital travel journal then the one photo per entry restriction on free plans isn’t going to cut it. Premium is affordable though, at just under $3 per month, which buys you unlimited photos, videos, audio, drawings, and more.

If you go all in on Journey as your travel journal app, it will become your trusted companion. Rather than being a journaling app that’s great for travel, this travel-centric journaling app goes above and beyond with its extensive features.

Geotagging allows you to pinpoint the exact location of you experiences, while the inclusion of weather data and “mood” status adds depth to entries. You can import photos from your camera roll directly into journal entires, creating vivid visual narratives of your travels.

This robust app works on iOS devices and Android phones, Mac or Windows computers, and there’s even a web app! Basically, it’s an accessible and essential tool for any travel writer seeking to document their adventures with style and precision. Not only because of the features, but also because it allows multi-media exports in PDF or doc format.

It’s also a bit cheeky and has a handy guide to what Journey offers versus Day One or Daylio .

Best app features : Stand out for many will be the features that let you automatically sync and import social media content from Instagram and the like—what a time saver! And the full text editing screen is nice—you can bold, bullet, color, or link to anything you’d like right inside the text. Surprisingly, that’s not in every diary journaling app.

But one of the neater travel-focused elements are the three views for your journal—media (where you scroll by photos), map (which shows your entries pinpointed on a map of the world) and calendar (journals organized by date).

Cost : Unlike essentially all competitors, Journey offers a one time purchase license—currently $18. You can buy a membership for ~$4.20.

Daylio , billed as a “simple micro-diary app,” adds an interesting twist to a travel journaling routine. As a mood and activity tracker, it enables you to record daily experiences and emotions with ease—and without writing anything. It’s an interesting way to to reflect on how your travel adventures have impacted your overall well-being .

It’s not for the hardcore travel writer, but rather, Daylio captures the essence of the travel experiences in a uniquely personal way. It’s a good companion for those seeking to intertwine their emotional journey with their physical travels. And for those who want a more streamlined diary app with fewer features and just straight to the meat of what you want to do.

Best app features : This app is dead simple to use and can be updated in under a minute thanks to the tap interface. It’s certainly not going to be the only way you record you travels, but if you’re already planning to share extensively on a Facebook or Instagram page , then this ease of use may just ensure that you use it every day.

Cost : You could get pretty far with the free version, or upgrade for just $3 per month—only the premium version supports exporting to PDF.

4. Evernote

Real talk: The digital travel journal of your dreams may be something you’re already using. When it comes to versatile note-taking, Evernote reigns supreme. Its functionality goes beyond simple journaling, allowing the creation of multimedia-rich entries.

I’ve organized my entire life via Evernote—travel pans, stories, etc—and its robust features make a compelling case for this being one of the best journaling apps out there, period. Not just in travel, but in general.

As one of the best digital diary apps, you can update it seamlessly across iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows.

Best app features : Well, you could use Evernote to basically plan and execute your trip, in addition to using it as a digital journal. You can also stay ruthlessly organized.

Cost : The free version offers 60 MB monthly uploads, which is constraining for travelers looking for an online app where they could add photos and videos to Evernote itself—this would like be better if you’re embedding YouTube videos, for example, versus storing them in Evernote.

The Personal version offers a more reasonable 10 GB in monthly uploads, but costs $11/month for that perk. If you’re already paying for Evernote for other reasons then this could be an excellent online travel journal, otherwise some of the other ones are likely better priced for a traveler.

5. Travel Diaries

For those seeking a dedicated travel journaling app, Travel Diaries hits the mark. It’s really a truly solid option. As a travel writer, I’m captivated by its interactive features. You can easily create immersive travelogues, complete with photos, maps, and annotations.

It’s also a captivating way to showcase your journey to fellow travelers (and your family and friends back home, of course!). The ability to share your travel stories and explore others’ adventures on the platform adds a sense of community not available in the other digital travel journaling apps.

It’s available as software for web, iOS and Android, but will only work with an internet connection (either cell data or wifi)—which means this might not be the best journaling app for those going far off-the-beaten path .

Best app features : A broad range of fonts and styles allow you to design your travel diary according to your own taste, and your travel log can include itineraries, travel photos, and a traveling map. The layout as an actual travel journal is a fun and personal touch that makes it feel like your digital diary is just as capable of creativity as a blank page in front of you.

Cost : There is no free version of Travel Diaries—it’ll be a subscription for as long as you want access to your travel journal. The basic plan costs $1 a month and includes unlimited storage and is really all most travelers will need for a robust travel journal. If you want to export your stories to PDF, you’ll have to upgrade to $3 per month.

Diaro App is a reliable companion for millions of people, not just globetrotters. This comprehensive diary app offers an array of features that elevate a travel journaling experience. Sometimes the best travel journal is, well, just a great online diary that you happen to use to document your travels.

The ability to add text, photos, tags, and organize entries into folders keeps this app well-organized—you can effortlessly find specific memories or delve into specific themes from your trips. It has a map of entry locations, which is especially important for those using this as a travel journal diary.

Diaro’s sleek interface and user-friendly design make the process of documenting adventures a true pleasure. Available on web, iOS or Android devices (with cross-device syncing via Dropbox) Diaro is a go-to app for travelers who want to capture the essence of their trip with elegance and efficiency.

Best app features : The multilingual UI (30+languages) may be a real boon for those for whom English is not their native language, but the shining standout features is just how easy it is to create a robust diary accounting for all of the key moments on your trip.

Cost : The free version has robust functionality. Upgrading to Diario Pro costs $10 per month and offers more customizability.

7. Polarsteps

Polarsteps is a great travel journal app that offers automatic tracking of your journey, making it effortless to document and share your trips. With its GPS technology, the app traces your route in real-time, creating a visually appealing map of your adventure without requiring any manual input.

This feature sets Polarsteps apart from other travel journal apps, as it eliminates the need for constant updates and allows you to focus on enjoying your trip while the app takes care of recording your route—and uses minimal data and power to do so.

What truly makes Polarsteps unique is its ability to create a beautifully presented travel log that showcases your journey. This app is made for the travel photographers out there also wanting a digital travel log of their journey.

Along with the automatic tracking, the app allows you to add photos, captions, and personal insights to your entries. These elements are then combined to create a visually stunning travel journal that can be shared with friends, family, and fellow travelers. I think this is one of the prettier apps—the maps alone are just a step up from the others.

Best app features : The GPS tracking is easily the standout here. You’ll know the precise spot you took a photo, and can then include a quick note—an inside joke you shared with a friend while there, a tidbit about the day, and more. This kind of precise location data is invaluable in the months and years after you travel.

Cost : It’s free! Polarsteps offers you a printed travel journal of your trip, which is how it’s monetized.

8. Waffle Journal

Waffle Journal stands out from the rest as a a collaborative journaling app that allows you to document and share your travel experiences with others—probably those on your same trip. Its unique approach fosters collaboration, allowing friends, family, or fellow travelers to contribute to your journal. With the ability to add stories, photos, and memories, everyone can create a collective travel diary that captures the essence of your adventures.

The app goes beyond traditional journaling by integrating multimedia elements. You can include photos, videos, and audio recordings. It’s not a travel journal specifically, so you’re not going to have any of those map features the travel apps have integrated into the experience, but it could be a great option for those travel in a group, or a group of friends who just love to share their travel adventures with each other. Social sharing features make it easy to showcase your travel adventures on social media platforms or via email.

BONUS: RIP: Bonjournal

Bonjournal captured my attention many years ago for its visually stunning approach to travel journaling. As you penned your travel stories, this app transformed them into beautifully presented narratives—and it made you choose just one photo to represent your day. Which was really quite neat.

This travel journal app is no longer available! Even though other websites are still recommending it as a travel diary app, the gorgeous app that debuted more than a decade ago is no longer up and running. Instead, a new app with the same name launched in 2021—it’s not a viable alternative. This new Bon Journal diary app is glitchy and poorly rated—storing your cherished travel memories there is not a good idea.

Don’t forget a paper journal as well.

This Moleskin travel journal is well made and worth the space it will take up in your bag. There will be times you just want to put pen to paper—you’ll be glad you have an analog record of your travels too.

How to Safely Store Travel Photos and Videos

These travel journaling apps are a terrific way to document your journey for personal memories, and to share with others. Although some long-term travelers create a travel blog to record their trips, using a travel diary instead is a great alternative.

You get amazing functionality and the ability to share your travel stories without the hassle of running a blog—which can get pricey and generally lacks the ability to share some stories privately with family, or keep other journal entries entirely private.

One thing all of these apps have are general constraints on how you upload, store, and present your travel photos and videos. Although some of these apps offer paid subscriptions with unlimited uploads, you’re likely safer if you store your actual travel photos elsewhere, too. Here’s a quick review of other places you can store travel photos, and the perks of using them in addition to, or instead of, a travel diary app.

• Facebook pages : Rather than use your personal profile, consider setting up a Facebook page for your trip—then you can share unlimited stories, photos, and videos. And you’re creating and sharing in a place where it’s likely your family and friends are already hanging out.
• Instagram : This is a great way to share photos, but videos and stories are a little more constrained on this platform. This might be a good option in addition to a digital travel diary.
• SmugMug : If you need a place to both store and display all of your travel photos, SmugMug is a great option. I’ve had an annual plan for more than a decade and it offers unlimited storage for all of my photos from all over the world for $88 per year. And it’s totally customizable—you can create gorgeous albums on a custom domain name if you own one.
• Google Drive : If you just need a backup solution without the need to share then Google Drive is a good option (I find Google Photos a chore to use). It’s just $2 a month for 100GB of cloud storage.

Ready for some travel inspiration? These are the best travel stories of travelers to follow now, inspiring books from historic travels, and short reads, too.

Essential Travel Planning Resources

❗ Yes, you need travel insurance . IMG Global is the travel insurance I’ve used for well over a decade of traveling solo, and with kids. Here’s why .

🧳 Smart packing can save your trip. Shop my favorite travel gear , including all of the packing essentials for world travel , gear to keep you safe on the road, my favorite travel books , and more.

🛏️ Find great accommodation . Booking.com is essentially the only hotel booking site that I use. It has a wide and affordable selection of traditional hotels, but also hostels and vacation rentals, too. Use these pro tips to find the best travel accommodation .

📍 Navigate more effectively. Rome2Rio is super handy to assess the full range of transport options between two cities—shows everything from flights to trains, buses, minibuses, and more. If you’re booking a rental car, I’ve always found the best deals on RentalCars.com .

✈️ Book affordable flights. Expedia is one of the first places I look for low-cost flights .

☕ Peruse all of my tips for round the world travel , or learn how to move and live abroad .

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Top 15+ Android and iOS Apps for Trip Loggings

Kateryna toniuk | may 06 2021.

When you are traveling or experiencing a new place or activity, no one wants to stare at their phone or tablet the whole time. However, you want the memories of your trips and travel to last forever, and you want to share those memories with friends and loved ones back home.

The best travel logs combine both worlds with stunning features and interfaces to document your memories, photos and videos of the places that you visit and simple, easy-to-use design. These 15 trip logging apps let you easily capture the memories, so you can get back to enjoying it in the moment.

In order to use all features of these travel logging apps to the fullest and never miss a single route or memory of your trip, it’s better to take care of instant connectivity services when you are abroad. Using DATA SIM card or a portable WiFi router on the  Lifetime plan  from Keepgo, you will never go offline whatever destination you choose for your next trip.

1. Evernote

For those little notes that you want to tuck away for yourself, whether it is reminding you of the sweet café that you visited in Paris or how you felt when you first stepped off the plane in Brazil, Evernote is the app to use. You may already use Evernote to jot down your to-do lists, recipes and document anything else that comes to mind. However, it also the 21st century alternative to carrying around a leather bound travel journal that will take up space in your suitcase and could be lost during your trip.

Journi is one of the most versatile travel log apps available. You can take photos, share them with friends and family and send them automatic updates about your travels in a few clicks. Plus, the app can syndicate your posts to Twitter and Facebook. You only need to share an update once or you can choose to keep it private and only send your messages to a private group of friends that you create on the platform. The app is available for free on  iOS  devices.

3. Bonjournal

Bonjournal combines a simple, easy-to-use interface with a beautiful minimalistic trip logging design. Users can keep track of each of their trips and organize them into personalized photo albums. Blogging on the app is super simple. If you don’t want to type out big blocks of text on your smartphone or tablet, the app syncs to a website with your own travel blog URL. You can share your travels by just sharing the link. You can test the app out with a free download on the Apple store .

Minube is a bit of a newcomer to the travel app game, but it has a lot of impressive features that make it one of the fastest-growing players. It acts as a travel planner and organizer, and you can even book hotels on the app. It also suggest more places to visit based on your location and interests. You can keep track of the places that you visit as well with photos that will be automatically tagged and added to your trip log, which you can also share as a guide for other travelers. The free mobile app can be downloaded on both iOS and Android devices.

5. Tripcast

If you are traveling in a group or participating in a volunteer project, Tripcast is one of the best trip logging apps to use. You can create shared photo albums, so that every member in your group can add the photos that they take on their phone and save them in one place. Everyone can view photos and share them with loved ones to keep in touch. The app will create a map for you based on photo geotagging, and you can see where you’ve traveled. Plus, you can use it on the web as well as on iOS and Android devices.

Perhaps the greatest feature with the trip logging app Momento is the power to connect all of your posts to a wide range of networks like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Spotify and even Medium. It’s so versatile that it doesn’t only have to be for when you travel. It serves as a journal to chronicle everything that you can imagine from pregnancy, work and daily life journals. However, the app is only available to download on iOS devices and you must pay a small price to enable some features.

7. Geospike

For those that don’t really care too much for writing but still want to capture their trip moments, Geospike is the app for you. The app, which you can download on  the Apple  store for free, allows user to log their trips with photos and an interactive map. It doesn’t have all the “bells and whistles” as some of the other travel apps, but its strengths are its impressive mapping features and simplicity. It has almost zero learning curve, so anyone can use it to log their trips. Plus, you can syndicate posts to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr quickly.

Day One is another easy-to-use trip logging app. One of the biggest benefits for users is that it can serve as a way to journal daily life or around a specific event, activity or trip. You can check the weather and tag your location, as well as other posts to search for them in the future. All of your logs can be accessed later and saved or exported in a PDF file, and you can add an extra layer of security with your own passcode to unlock your log. But, it is only available on iOS devices and will cost you between $5 and $10 to download.

9. Polarsteps

Polarsteps is an easy and intuitive travel log application for Android and iOS . Once installed and activated, it automatically tracks all routes and places that you have visited. It tracks your trips shows your routes by means of a colorful map. All that a traveler needs to do to make the app work properly is to carry a smartphone in the pocket and make sure there is instant Internet connection wherever they travel. 

Also, it lets you add stories and calculate statistics of the countries that you have visited. The app is integrated with popular social media platforms, thus letting you share your achievements with your followers. By means of your location-tagged photos, the app can create a travel log, which you can further print as a memory about your journey.

10. Journey

Journey is Google Editors choice of the best travel log applications. The application is used by millions of users worldwide. This is a travel diary that will help you keep your travel memories for a lifetime. The application lets you add your photos and videos that you took during your trip and attach audio files or text notes. The app can also add weather and location details to your journal entries. Additionally, the app lets you export your diaries to DOCX and PDF files to share your entries or just save them to your hardware. The app is available for both Android and iOS .

Penzu app isn’t built for travelers specifically. This is a journal app for Android and iOS users. With its help, travelers can make notes in both online and offline modes. At the same time, it provides free syncing opportunities across the web and multiple mobile platforms. It lets you create fully customized journal covers, add photos from your trips in travel logs, and categorize them with custom tags.

Similar to Penzu, Diaro app features an intuitive interface that can work flawlessly in the online and offline modes. It’s easy to categorize your content and bring better structure to your travel notes due to the app’s support of custom folders and tags. Additionally, it allows you to create diary entries featuring geotagged photos and maps. 

Being available for Android and iOS , the application offers multi-lingual support and a number of data sharing options that let you export your travel logs and benefit from cloud syncing opportunities.

13. Diarium

Diarium application is only available for Android  and iOS users. With its help, you can create journals in a calendar interface. The app lets you attach drawings, audio files, write stories, tag several entries for a day, as well as include a sitemap with the location where a certain event was recorded. Along with your journals, the app displays your calendar events, weather info, fitness data, and other data.

Diarium supports the possibility to export your journal entries together with their media attachments in DOCX and HTML formats.

14. LifeTales 

LifeTales works as a free life journal where you can archive your personal stories or travel journeys in a private, safe environment. It also includes an option to share stories and selected journals with selected groups of people. You can also add the story behind the pictures by text or audio. If you travel with family or friends, the app also lets you collaborate on stories with other people.

LifeTales app is available for web browsers, iOS, and Android.

15. Travelopy

Travelopy is a free travel journal app. It lets you create create entries, auto tags entries with location tags, and group entries into a Journey. The app lets you discover places in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan & South Korea based on recommendations by fellow travelers and influential bloggers.

16. TripLog Mileage Tracker & Expense Log

TripLog app lets you save time and money by automating mileage and expense capture you maximize your mileage tax deductions and reimbursements. It’s one of the most popular applications suited for individual and corporate use. It provides accurate mileage tracking for tax deductions and mileage reimbursement for every type of business, big or small. The application offers diverse options that can suit every user, ranging from self-employed driving a car for their business to enterprises offering mileage reimbursement to their employees. 

Driftr app will come in handy for planning, booking, recording, and sharing your adventures on a single platform. It’s designed as a social network who enjoy spending a lot of time on the road. The application supports photos and videos. It welcomes travelers to share their advice and experience (especially from secluded locations) with fellow vacationers. Driftr keeps you connected on any device, anywhere in the world, and can even be used offline to manage moments and experiences from secluded locations.

The Driftr app is available for iOS and Android devices.  

Although some trip logging apps offer offline saving, don’t risk losing your precious trip moments. Finding reliable WiFi connection when you’re traveling can often be challenging, and data roaming charges are incredibly expensive. Instead, you can document your travels with Keepgo’s fast, inexpensive and reliable international mobile SIM cards and mobile WiFi hotspots .

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6 Best Travel Journal Apps for Your Next Trip

By Author Meg Frost

Posted on Last updated: October 20, 2023

Categories Travel Tech

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I love to look back on past adventures via journals, photos, and videos – but it can be so time consuming!

One of my tricks to organizing all of my travel memories is to use travel journal apps.

Over the years, many of these apps have evolved to include so much more than a way to organize photos and videos.

Many also help you plan your travels, gather and report data, and a few even help you create printed photo books!

Check out this post for my absolute favorite travel journal apps to help you document your adventures through slide shows, photo collages, timelines, maps, photo books, and more.

1 Second Everyday

Turn your travel videos into a travel journal summary with 1 Second Everyday.

This app pieces together 1 second video clips to create a video, making it a super easy way to create travel video without the need for video editing skills.

1 Second Everyday is a great way to journal a day or an entire trip with ease. I love that it eliminates the analysis paralysis when it comes to journaling creatively or creating content for your social media.

In my opinion, 1SE is the best free journal app for iPhone and Android overall, not just for recording travel memories.

Pros : Super easy to use and create fun videos that can double as social media content. Cons : Sometimes 1 second just isn’t enough! Download : iOS / Android

Day One Journal

Day One Journal is an impressive digital travel journal app for iPhones, Android smartphones, Apple Watch, and Mac computers.

Its biggest strength is the collection of data for all photos and videos, such as weather, location, and music. It also includes a timeline view and a map view.

This is a great travel journal app for those that like to reflect about everything that happened on their trip.

Day One Journal will make it a bit easier to remember the finer details, like weather and addresses.

Pros : Not just an app – also has a Mac app and a Safari browser extension so you can work on your Mac laptop or desktop. Cons : No browser extension or software for non-Mac laptops and desktop computers. Download : iOS / Android / Mac / Browser Extensions

Grid Diary combines digital journal capabilities with a planner for one ultimate app.

Users can keep track of all they need to do, create journal entries with guided writing prompts, add stickers and tags, and gather statistics.

This app is more of a traditional text-based journal and planner, but sometimes that is really all folks want!

Pros : One app to keep you organized and record memories. Cons : Most of the valuable features are only available in the premium version (can’t blame ’em though!) Download : iOS / Android

Momento pulls in data from all of your social channels to piece together a journey’s story, such as Instagram, Facebook, Spotify, and Uber.

You can keep your stories private or share with friends to select social media channels, as well as via text message or email.

Momento is a great travel journal app for those that are heavy social media users. You’re already documenting your travels elsewhere, but this app will pull them together in a cohesive way.

Pros : Super easy to use and affordable premium subscription available with extra features. Cons : Only available on iOS. Last major update was in 2016. Download : iOS

PolarSteps is a fun app that helps you plan and track your travels.

However, the standout feature with this travel journal app is that you can transform your journal into a printed photo book!

The PolarSteps book includes summaries and stats pulled from app usage, such as maps, miles or kilometers traveled, number of countries visited, and so on.

In my opinion, this is not only the best free travel journal app for iPhone and Android, but one of the best traveling apps for iPhone and Android, too.

Pros : Top notch usability design makes it super easy to use. Cons : Some limitations with customizing the travel book, such as inability to choose size and limited number of color themes. Download : iOS / Android

Keep mom and dad updated on your travels without annoying your Facebook or Instagram friends with every single photo you take via Tripcast .

Or if you’d rather not share with everyone you can use Tripcast to share photos with just your travel group.

Tripcast is a great way to track longer journeys and still keep up with your friends and family back home.

Pros : Makes sharing photos from everyone on a group trip seamless. Cons : Limited social media capabilities despite being one of its focus features. Download : iOS / Android

What are your favorite travel journal apps?

Let me know in the comments below which travel journal apps you use when you travel.

Next up, check out more of my favorite travel & tech tips:

• 15 Best Travel Journals
• 8 Best Manifestation Journals
• 8 Photo Sharing Websites
• Best Photo Editing Apps
• Best Camera Apps

About the author

Meg Frost is a Boston-based travel blogger that helps people embrace technology to make vacation planning and traveling wicked easy, affordable, and fun.

She holds an M.A. in Journalism from Northeastern University and B.S. in Communication & American Studies from University of Miami.

Read more →

This post was originally published April 22, 2017. It was last updated December 1, 2022.

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Wednesday 14th of February 2024

I have been hunting and hunting for a travel journal that is easily updating- shareable with friends, with a push notification kind of thing. There are SO many and have read and read. I want to journal and add pictures. I don't want anything that does anything automatically or populates anything. I want to write and add photos or maps as I choose. Thank you SO much

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Friday 17th of March 2023

[…] Best Travel Journal Apps for Journaling on the Go […]

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Saturday 11th of March 2023

[…] 5 Best iPhone Travel Journal Apps […]

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The Best Digital Tools for Travel Journaling

When it comes to logging your travel memories, the modern era poses a unique set of problems. You don’t want to upload a hundred vacation photos to Facebook (newsflash: no one’s looking), and you know you won't get around to printing all those snapshots—but one or two Instagram posts just aren't enough to do your trip justice. Enter the digital travel journal: an elevated way to share photos, jot down memories, geo-tag restaurants, and track your itinerary in real time.

Kristen Dold is a Chicago-based freelance writer and content strategist who focuses on health, travel, and lifestyle topics. Her work has appeared in Women’s Health, Travel + Leisure, Runner’s World, Marie Claire, GQ, Vogue, and New York magazine.

Best For: Building stunning photo-centric narratives

Exposure’s clean, minimalist aesthetic has made it a fast favorite among the professional photog set, but it’s easy enough to use for amateurs. The concept is simple: drag and drop your snapshots into grids, add some brief titles and descriptors, then let your followers bask in full-bleed photos that have the highbrow feel of a digital magazine. (Take a look at some of their featured stories to see what we mean.)

Price: Free for the first three stories, $5+ a month after that

Best for: sharing real-time updates with close friends.

No more overposting anxiety— Tripcast is like a private Instagram feed for the folks who really do care about your every move. (Hi, Mom.) Friends at home and fellow explorers can get notifications on your whereabouts and comment on trip photos that automatically upload to a travel map. Another perk: travel pals can build albums together so everyone’s memories are in one spot.

Price: Free

Best for: keeping a quick chronicle while on the move.

The newly revamped version of the Day One app (called ‘Day One 2’) makes journaling as easy as posting to Twitter. Jot down some highlights, attach a photo, and the app will stamp your location, the date, time, weather, and even your step count, if you want it. Plus you can tag posts, so it's easy to keep past excursions organized for future reference. (If you like microjournaling, the app can keep separate journals for things like work, health or sleep.) Features like audio recording and tagging your friends are coming soon.

Cost: $4.99

Best for: getting wordy without wifi.

Words and images get equal real estate on Bonjournal , a Tumblr-like platform ( here’s what it looks like) which allows you to add tags like ‘food & drink’ or ‘nightlife’ to entries, share them on social media (a privacy lock is available for any posts you want to keep to yourself) and even give your experiences a grade. The best feature: you can create posts offline and upload them later, ideal for long flights home without wifi.

6 Free Travel Journal Apps to Create a Beautiful Trip Diary

Use these free travel journal apps to note your thoughts, add photos, map your locations, and share your travel diary with friends.

They say that the trick to remembering anything you learn, think, or feel, is to write it down. Travelling is all about learning, thinking, and feeling, and these free travel journal apps make it easy for you to maintain a trip diary, which you can embellish with photos and share with friends.

1. Find Penguins (Android, iOS): Auto Track Your Travels and Post Updates for Friends

Find Penguins is a smart app that automatically tracks your movements during your trip, while your phone is in your pocket. It also updates the weather, temperature, and altitude, providing a quick snapshot of what the conditions were like that day.

All the data that the app gathers is presented in cool statistics and interactive maps. It's fun to see how you traveled represented on a map as a trail and posts about the noteworthy events. Find Penguins also updates your profile along the way, noting how many countries you went to, how many trips, and so on.

Each post in Find Penguins is called a footprint, which can include text, images, videos, or a combination of these. The app is a bit like using social media, and you can control who sees your posts. If you discover something you want to do while browsing a friend's feed, you can add it to your "bucket list" and save it for later. If you're traveling with someone else, you can add them to your trip to get joint updates on your statistics.

Download: Find Penguins for Android | iOS (Free)

2. Travel Facets (Web, Android, iOS): Turn Your Camera Roll Into an Automatic Album

Travel Facets turns all the photos you take on a trip into an organized album of your travels. The app reads the geotagging location data in each picture you've taken with your phone, matches the date and time with weather records, and maps out the trail. You won't have to lift a finger throughout this process.

Once the album is ready, you can edit it to add captions or additional data. These are called waypoints, and you can even add non-image waypoints manually to note something worthwhile.

You can also skip the entire automatic album maker and make a trip manually. You get more control over each waypoint and how it represents your trip. You'll want to use this mode if you want a robust travel diary, adding your thoughts to create a memorable journal.

Share albums with other Travel Facets users or privately so that only those with the link can see your trip.

Download: Travel Facets for Android | iOS (Free)

3. TravelMap (Web): Simplest Way to Create a Map of Your Travel Blog

Sometimes, you don't want the complexities of an app, social news feeds, auto-tagging, and all that jazz. Instead, all you want is to create a map where you add places of interest to plot your trail, along with photos and journal entries. TravelMap is that simple, free solution.

The simplicity of this web app is its best part. Sign up, create your mini-site with a unique address, and start creating your map. The map is your homepage, where you add places by searching or clicking placemarkers. You can always reorder these too.

Then, add images to your map or write posts and link them to the placemarkers you've already mapped. The result for a viewer is a neatly ordered map showing your journey, with a sidebar that displays images or posts to reveal more about your adventures.

The free version of TravelMap should be enough for most people, as its restrictions are still pretty high (like a maximum of 100 images). However, the premium version removes all such limitations if you need it. You can also check out a cool demo of TravelMap to see its full possibilities.

4. Jauntlet (Web, Android, iOS): Journal That Looks Like a Travel Blog Timeline

The Jauntlet web and mobile app look a bit dated compared to others in this list, but the final output looks so good that it deserves a recommendation. It's a mix of a travel journal and a travel blog, presenting your trip in a neat timeline.

When you sign up, Jauntlet asks you to also connect your Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. This lets the app import photos from your different profiles. When you make any new post of a city you've been to, add the location to plot it on a map, write a journal entry of what you saw and felt, and select photos to add to the entry.

The final result looks fantastic, as seen in the image above. It's a timeline of where you've been, showing a map on the left, the city and date at the top, and your thoughts and photos on the right. Viewers can also comment under the entry. The whole thing can be played as an automatic slideshow, taking readers through your entire journey.

Download: Jauntlet for Android | iOS (Free)

5. Travel Diaries (Web, Android,iOS): Create an Actual Diary and Optionally Print It

Travel Diaries is a free app to design what a travel journal of your trip will look like and optionally print it too. The app is a virtual open book where you can write beautifully formatted entries.

For each page, you can apply one out of 38 custom layouts, choosing how text and images will appear on the page. Based on the layout, select and upload images from your camera roll, and write text in the simple text editor.

Travel Diaries isn't the best app for on-the-fly travel journaling while you're on the trip. It's more a place to reflect on your journey and compose a good-looking travel diary that you would be proud to show to friends. If you like what you've created, you can pay to download a PDF of the journal or ask the app makers to print and ship the travel journal to you directly.

Download: Travel Diaries for Android | iOS (Free)

6. Traveldays (Web): Travelogue of Photos With Location, Time, and Captions

Traveldays is one of the best online photo album creators to show off your trips and vacations. It's shockingly easy to use, as it takes your photos and automatically turns them into a picture journey of your travels, almost like showing postcards or polaroids to friends.

Upload your pictures in the order you want, and Traveldays will seek their geotagging information to pin it to a Google Map. You can also write small captions on each image. Share the link with your friends, and you're done.

Try a Physical Travel Diary

So which travel journal app should you go for? There's no one-size-fits-all app here. As a rule of thumb, Find Penguins, Travel Facets, and Jauntlet can better log your thoughts while on the trip. TravelMap, Travel Diaries, and Traveldays are better to create a travel diary after you're back from the trip.

But as much as we love these apps, there is a case to be made to use a physical travel diary instead. Not only do many travelers swear by the little diary they carry with them, but How Life Unfolds offers a detailed guide on how to use a travel journal while you're on a trip to make it more memorable than ever before.

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Best Travel Journal & Travel Journal App for Travelers | 2024 Guide

January 29, 2024 By Josh Summers

Are you searching for the best travel journal or best travel journal app?  Whether you’re the kind of person who jots down notes during the journey, sketches what you’re seeing or collects scraps of tickets and brochures along the way, it helps to find an awesome travel journal or digital travel journal app for the job.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s available and which physical and digital travel journal might fit your needs.

As I’ve journeyed around the globe, I’ve developed my own “system” for recording my various travel experiences. Part of it involves my camera, part a travel journal and part my travel blog.

I’m not saying it’s the best way to record the journey, it’s merely the way I do it.

Everybody has their own journal system .

You will most certainly see and experience a destination different than I will. You will also have a different preference for how you want to remember it.

Perhaps you like to doodle.

Or maybe you’re like me and you prefer to sit alone with some awesome noise-cancelling headphones to write with pen to paper.

Maybe you’d rather have everything digital and backed up to the cloud.

There are so many different methods, which is why there are so many different kinds of travel journals. Don’t look at this list of the best travel journals and best travel journal apps and get overwhelmed.

Determine how you want to record your travels and then find the journal or app that fits your needs.

Best Travel Journals

• Moleskine Voyager
• Maleden Leather
• Atlas Travel Journey
• Indestructible Field Book
• Bonus: Kid’s Journal

Best Travel Journal Apps

• FindPenguins
• Day One Journal
• Polarsteps App
• Journo Travel App
• Bonjournal App

You can use the links above to jump to a specific section, or continue to scroll down to discover new recommendations to write out your experiences or record them in a digital journal.

Note: Some of the links in this article are affiliate links, which means that at no extra cost to you, I may be compensated if you choose to buy one of these journals.

Best Travel Journals | For Those Who Want Physical Books

There’s nothing quite like writing or drawing in a physical book. At least, that’s my personal opinion.

Thankfully, there are plenty of excellent travel journals available for you to choose from. Here are some of my favorites as well as those that some of my friends and fellow travelers have used:

1. Moleskine Voyageur Travel Journal – Recommended

Moleskine is known for their amazing journals, and the  Moleskine Voyageur travel journal  is no different.

In addition to all the blank pages that are available for you to write or draw about your travel experiences, this Voyageur journal also includes:

• Additional Travel Sections  such as budget pages, planning pages and packing lists.
• Double-Page World Map  to keep track of where your travels take you.
• A Back Pocket  to store any ticket stubs or other scraps.

Moleskine gives users the option to integrate to their online platform, but this really doesn’t add much to the journal. However, the quality of the journal and the paper is great.

Whether as a gift or for your own personal use as a travel journal, the Voyageur is one of the best options available.

As you’ll see on Amazon, the Moleskine Voyageur has a number of different style colors to choose from.

2. Maleden Leather Travel Journal

This eye-catching Maleden travel journal doesn’t just look good, it feels amazing. The soft, premium leather cover makes this feel more important than a simple diary. You’re a world traveler and this feels like it!

Although this leather travel journal lacks a lot of the features that the Moleskine does so well, there are two features I love:

• Spiral Bound  pages make it easier to take out or add pages!
• Zipper Pouch  to put all the scraps and make sure you don’t lose them.

The blank pages of the Maleden Travel Journal are perfect for drawing or scrap-booking. If you’re the kind of person that doesn’t want lines to confine your creativity and ability to doodle, this is the right option for you.

p.s. If you’re still not sure about this journal, I recommend you click through to the Amazon page where the reviews and answered questions are extremely helpful.

3. Atlas Travel Journal

The Atlas Travel Journal is one of the most highly-reviewed travel journals on Etsy for a reason – it’s an amazing journal!

In addition to the beautiful vegan leather, the journal has a number of creative features such as:

• A world map that can be colored in when you visit a specific country (24″ x 16″)
• Interchangeable inserts so you don’t have to buy a whole new one when you use up the pages here.
• A random international coin . And if you visit the country and take a picture with the coin, Atlas will even Venmo you money to buy a drink or ice cream in that country!

It’s a fun way to carry your journal around with you and it feels like a quality piece. You’ll be proud to take it out and write in it no matter where you are in the world!

4. Indestructible Field Book – Best Travel Journal All-Weather

Although not technically a “travel journal” per se, I’ve included  The Indestructible Field Book  as an option for those of you adventure travelers who don’t expect the luxury of perfect conditions in order to use your travel journal.

There’s nothing fancy about this booklet. It’s 48 lined pages that are both tear-proof and waterproof.

You write using a regular ball point pen and it won’t bleed or fade. If you’re going to be hiking, around water or even traveling around Southeast Asia during the rainy season, you can take your chances with a beautiful, leather-bound journal. Or you can eliminate any worries with a weatherproof notebook.

BONUS: Kid’s Travel Journal

For those of us who travel with kids (I have two young boys myself), giving them a Kids’ Travel Journal to allow them to record their memorable experiences is huge.

You’re not only creating memories, you’re creating habits (and you might be surprised how much they love doing it!)

The Kid’s Travel Journal is pretty simple but lots of fun. In addition to pages for recording the adventure, kids will also find:

• Road Games  to keep them entertained during a long flight or car ride.
• Planning Pages  to help kids get excited about where they’re going to visit.
• Fun Graphics  that make it feel more like a personal coloring book than a serious journal.

There’s a back pocket where your kids can keep the things that are most important to them. You might be surprised at what they consider “interesting”!

If you’ve got kids joining you on a family journey, this is definitely worth the price.

Best Travel Journal Apps 2024 | A Digital Diary for Travelers

There are so many advantages to using a digital diary or travel journal app:

• GPS tracking;
• Immediate digital photos;
• Cloud sync;
• …and on and on.

If you’re the type of traveler that would rather type than write, these are my favorite travel journal apps.

1. FindPenguins Tracker & Journal – Best Overall Travel App

FindPenguins is a beautiful travel app that automatically tracks your travels using a combination of your device’s GPS and artificial intelligence.

The app then takes that information to create fun statistics about weather (the hottest place you’ve been), countries visited, distances traveled, etc.

You fill in the gaps with what they call “Footprints”, which are essentially blog posts that allow you to attach videos, photos and more. Your travels can be kept private, shared with friends or made public.

And that’s not even the best part!

When you’re finished with your trip, you can have the FindPenguins app compile a beautiful, printed book (paid) that includes maps, your photos, your Footprints and other great statistics about your trip.

The app is free to download and try, but to take advantage of the full set of features, you’ll want to upgrade to Premium, that costs either ~US$5/mo or ~US$33/year.

Check out the FindPenguins app on the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store here.

2. Day One Journal – Best Journal App

There is a standard for digital travel journals, and that bar was set by Day One . If you’ve never seen this app before, you need to try it.

There’s a free version that works well, but I highly recommend you upgrade to premium ( I don’t get any sort of bonus commission for saying that ).

With Premium you get:

• Multimedia Journal Entries  that include writing, photos and even audio recordings.
• Cloud Sync  that allows you unlimited photo and journal storage.
• Beautiful Design  and excellent visual organization of all the entries.

Of course, one of my favorite features is that Day One syncs across all your devices, which includes phones, tablets and even your  Apple Mac . This is huge for me because I would much rather take pictures with my phone while I’m more apt to write a journal entry on my iPad.

The annual subscription is pricey (US$30+), but you can always try the free version for  iOS  and  Android .

3. Polarsteps – Travel Tracker App

Polarsteps is a beautifully-designed app that acts more as a glorified GPS tracker than a travel journal, but I still think it’s worthy of this list.

The primary feature of Polarsteps is that  you don’t have to do anything  – it works by itself! You take pictures just like you normally would and keep your phone with you wherever you go.

When you’re done, Polarsteps automatically plots your journey on a map complete with your pictures of the trip.

One on hand, this could be annoying to the traveler that wants to jot down notes or create a sort of digital diary entry. If that’s you, don’t get this travel journal app.

However, if you’d rather use your phone as your personal tracker – one that friends and family can follow along with – Polarsteps a great app.

At the very end, you can even purchase a book based on your journey that is part travel map/route, part photo journal.

4. Journo Travel Journal App | Best Group Travel App

As the self-proclaimed “#1 Travel Journal App,” Journo has a lot to live up to. Thankfully, it does a pretty good job.

What sets this digital travel journal app apart from all the others on the market is one thing: collaboration. Journo allows you to collaborate with other users to create a shared trip experience.

Create beautiful journal entries with text, photos and GPS coordinates. The app automatically plots your trip on a map and if you’re collaborating, you’ll see your the entries and photos for your friends/family as well.

The only two downsides to this app are the pricing (annual subscription model similar to Day One) and they only offer iOS apps for iPhone and iPad . Thankfully, they have a 14-day free trial and they’re (still) working on an Android app.

5. Bonjournal – Minimalist (& Free) Travel Journal App

If you’re looking for a free travel journal app, Bonjournal is the app you’re looking for.

I like to think of this app as a minimalist, stripped-down version of Day One (see above) . You have the ability to add photos and write journals on each day.

The app is available for both iPad and iPhone . The developer seems to have plans to add an Android app but that hasn’t happened yet. Since there are no paid upgrades, there’s no incentive for the developer to get this done quickly, unfortunately.

By far the best feature of Bonjournal is the ability to export your journal entries as one PDF with all your writing and photos. It may not look like a gorgeous magazine layout, but at least you can print it!

Conclusion | Best Travel Journals and Apps for 2024

There are plenty of great physical travel journals and travel journal apps on the market. The biggest challenge is choosing the one that works for you.

In the end, I recommend the Moleskine Voyageur as the best travel journal and Find Penguins as the best travel journal app. Give one (or both) a try to see what I mean.

Thankfully, none of these travel journals cost tons of money, unlike what you’ll have to spend to find the best travel camera . Even if you don’t like what you get, you haven’t wasted a bunch of money.

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Top 5 Travel Apps to Record and Share your Trip

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Create memorable travel journals and share online, with friends & loved ones by using one of these great Top 5 Travel Apps to Record and Share your Trip!

So perhaps you’ve dreamed up your perfect holiday or maybe you’re already packing and ready to take off tomorrow! The key to mastering mobile apps is to not go overboard. Too many apps are overwhelming and you either end up using none of them or using them inefficiently. So we recommend you have a think about what you want to do with your photos, travel notes and maybe download the apps that are best suited to you. Then give them a test run on the plane or train and see how you get on.

Evernote is available on App Store & Google Play

VSCO Cam This great app is one of the most comprehensive apps for photo taking for smartphones out there. The presets in the app trump the likes of Instagram and the sharing capabilities are endless. All tools within the app can be adjusted and customised to suit the feel you want to achieve in your photographs. These range from exposure, temperature, fades, vignettes and contrast to define your look. On holiday we all like to take a thousand off photos and that’s why we love the viewing feature that allows you to browse your pictures in different thumbnail sizes. Of course all images can be exported full resolution and shared with friends and family on social media.

VSCO Cam is available on App Store & Google Play

Trip Journal Trip Journal is the ultimate travel app to track, record, document, and share your travels with friends and family. Everyone loves travel photos and videos. You can add them to Trip Journal from your iPhone Photo Gallery or take them in Trip Journal. Maybe there are some special things you want to jot down to remember about a place you visited. You can write notes in the journal to describe your vacation experiences and you can add comments to photos and videos as well. With Google Earth integration, Trip Journal allows friends and family to easily see the route you travelled, the places you found most interesting, and full screen photos, videos, and comments about the places you visited. It even includes trip stats like the distance, time and geography you traveled. What you get in the end with Trip Journal are one-of-a-kind travel journals handcrafted by you, rich with your travel experience and full of great travel memories captured for many years to come that you can share anytime and anywhere, with family and friends near or far.

Trip Journal is available on App Store & Google Play

Tripomatic Great not only for planning your itinerary, this app even allows you to see your trip visualised in a really neat infographic to share with your friends across all platforms. Aside from this aspect, you can create a personal travel guide adding sights you see along the way so you don’t miss anywhere you’ve been! You can even download maps and edit your trip from any device with your web browser if you want to fine tune any details. This app really is an all in one travel gem.

Tripomatic is available on App Store & Google Play

Postagram It doesn’t all have to remain digital! We absolutely love this app, and not many people know about it. Postagram turns your iPhone, Instagram and Facebook photos in to beautiful postcards delivered by real mail! So how does it work? Well you simply choose your photo, add a personalised photo of yourself if you wish, include a message and away you go. Great if you’re in the middle of nowhere and don’t have a clue where the nearest postbox might be, let alone how to ask for a postage stamp!

Postagram is available on App Store & Google Play

So we hope you’ve enjoyed our video and hope you enjoy these apps for documenting and sharing your trip with friends and family. Above all, enjoy your trip! If you have any questions, feel free to tweet us @MyTravelMoneyUK

Thank you for watching and goodbye!

Written by Sofia Kluge on Google+

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Best apps and sites to plan, record and share your trips

Nov 25, 2013 • 5 min read

Dreaming up a trip is the easiest part of every journey. All you need is a working imagination. The other bits before you go? Not so easy, or so much fun. You’ve got to book tickets, worry about accommodation, work out budgets, apply for visas…then you’ve got to plan your itinerary. And what about recording memories for sharing during the trip itself? It can be hard to keep track of the many aspects of a holiday via scraps of paper and a jumble of emails.

Here are some websites and apps to help plan, track, record and share your holiday in an easier and more organised fashion. Try them and pick the ones you’re most comfortable using: keep it lean and only use the sites/apps which are truly useful to your travel patterns or risk being caught in a paralysing loop of app agony.

Red eye by Marcin Wichary . CC BY 2.0 .

If you’re a fastidious planner and need to religiously track all your itineraries, TripIt ( www.tripit.com ) is a life saver. Just email your confirmation emails (car hire, hotel bookings, airline tickets, restaurant reservations, etc) to [email protected] and voila, you have an instant itinerary. The basic app is free (with ads) and paying $49/year gives you real-time flight alerts, seat tracking, frequent flier tracking and other goodies. iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone apps available.

Gogobot ( www.gogobot.com ) is like Tripadvisor in that it has reviews and recommendations (hotels, sights, restaurants). Where it differs is the ability to plan trips, connect with friends who have been to destinations (to get their advice), and find like-minded recommendations by similar ‘tribes’ (ie. interest groups). It’s good for planning, connecting and getting recommendations. iOS and Android apps available.

Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree forum

Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree forum is an old-school web way of canvassing the thoughts and opinions of fellow travellers. You’ll find every conceivable topic covered: destinations, language, activities, travel technology, biking, hiking, packing, etc. You’ll find fellow forum users a passionate bunch and quick to respond to any and all sorts of queries you might have.

Roadtrippers

Road trip by Tim Lucas . CC BY 2.0 .

Planning a road trip through North America? Map it out on Roadtrippers ( roadtrippers.com ). Punch in your start and end points and the website maps your route and suggests sights, restaurants, and more along the way. Select the points of interest you’d like to see and add them as waypoints on your journey. ‘Guides’ with content contributed by other travel websites add thematic elements and ideas for your trips. Save and share your trip and download the app on iOS to access your itineraries on the run.

Mygola ( www.mygola.com ) presents slick-looking ‘curated’ list of itineraries which users can use as a base for planning their own trips. Start by typing in a destination. Suggested itineraries pop up. These can be customised, or you can create your own trip from scratch. You can then access and tweak the trip on a calendar page: add or remove elements such as sights or restaurants. Add notes, view the trip on the map and share the itinerary with people (and collaborators). When you’re done, there’s even a ‘book’ function that lets you book accommodation and buy tickets.

Other similar itinerary planning apps include the easy-to-use and ‘does it all for you’ Plnnr ( plnnr.com ), which has a handy ‘print itinerary' function, and Tripomatic ( www.tripomatic.com ), which creates a pretty nifty infographic of your trip). The latter has iOS and Android apps that also double as (paid) city guides with offline maps.

The Traveler

This free Android app ( play.google.com ) was originally developed by Ball State University for students to record field trips but it has since generated some buzz in the travel field. Users can create trips that use Google Maps and a GPS location to track travel paths. Add notes, videos, audio and waypoints and put it all together as a trip journal. You can then review the path in Google Maps and Google Earth. The developers have been adding new features and have been most responsive to user feedback. It takes a bit of experimenting to understand how it works and all its functions, but it’s a great free travel app.

You could also consider using free extended note-taking apps such as Google Keep and Evernote ( evernote.com ) to keep track of your trip. These apps save data in the cloud so you can sync information across devices.

Exchange money by epSos.de . CC BY 2.0 .

Making sure you don’t blow your budget is part and parcel of every holiday. Ditch your notebook or Excel spreadsheets and check out the iOS-only Trail Wallet ( voyagetravelapps.com/trail-wallet ) and Travel Budget App ( travelbudgetapp.com ) or the iOS/Android Bon Voyage app ( itunes.apple.com ). These apps track your expenses while you’re on holiday. Standard features such as setting budgets, changing currencies and, of course, checking whether you’ve blown the budget or pinched pennies (shown as a percentage on an infographic) are all there.

Capturing and sharing moments

Facebook and Twitter are great for keeping up with the news from home and staying in touch with friends and family, but when you’re on holiday, you really want to be spending more time recording moments and sharing them instead of hearing about how Man Utd fared over the weekend. For sharing vignettes of your trip, the top choice would be Instagram, which now does short videos too ( instagram.com ). iOS-only options include Hipstamatic and Oggl ( hipstamatic.com/oggl ). For photographers who want more editing capabilities in addition to social sharing, try VSCO Cam ( vsco.co/vscocam ).

All these apps are great at linking with other social networks and blogs. You can kill several birds with one stone and autopost your photos and short videos to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr streams.

Shawn Low has been planning, tracking, recording, and sharing his travels throughout Southeast Asia, China and Australia for Lonely Planet. Follow his tweets at @shawnlow .

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Best Voice Recording Apps for Travelers

• by Diana Rowe
• May 20, 2020 June 8, 2020

For those who are too young to remember, back in the day, if you wanted to record verbal notes on your travel experiences, you carried a tape recorder with physical tape cartridges. As technology advanced, next up were tapeless recorders, but travelers stilled lugged a physical recorder. Today, for those wanting to record your travel experience, all you need is a voice recording app, downloadable to your phone. Read on for the best voice recording apps for travelers.

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Table of Contents

If you are embarking on a trip to a tourist destination and you want to record your experience, then you need a voice recording app. Voice recording devices are equally great, but who wants to add that to your carry-on or check back. When traveling light is a priority, then apps provide the best options. The best news is that voice recording device apps are downloadable on both iPhones and Androids.

Read More:   5 “P” Skills of Digital Nomads: How To Survive On the Road

Voice recording apps make it easy for any voice actor to record demos and practice their voice-over skills on the go. Also, these apps make it easy to record anywhere you are in the world and have your demos ready for agents and clients on platforms like voquent.com .

Maybe you’re a travel blogger or writer, or simply want to record your experiences as a tourist? If you are looking for the best voice recording apps for travelers, do not worry, we have got you coved too.

Voice Recorder by Green Apple Studio

Offering high definition quality voice features, recordings using the Voice Recorder by Green Apple Studio can be saved in both MP3 and OGG file formats. Pause and continue with a click and can even be recorded when your phone’s display is locked. The live sound spectrum analyzer assists with editing and improving the audio.

Although the application doesn’t have call recording capabilities, it still offers features for recording your travel experience. And yes it’s free!

Hi-Q MP3 Voice Recorder

Hi-Q MP3 Voice Recorder is another dependable voice recording app for Android. The application is packed with features and offers a few customization options. The application is simple and user-friendly.

Audio files are saved in MP3 format but you can record in OGG, M4A, WAV, and FLAC formats. It also allows you to automatically upload recordings to Google Drive and Dropbox. There is an option to save a home screen widget for quick launch, pause, and resume recording.

Easy Voice Recorder

Created by Digipom, Easy Voice Recorder , another one of many few voice recording apps, enhances the experience, and makes it appropriate for everybody. The application records top-notch sound and even supports Android wear. The recordings can be shared through Email, SMS, and different applications. The ‘Echo Cancellation’ and ‘Noise Suppression’ alternatives make it easier to give the best outcomes.

While the free version offers the above features, the Pro version gives more alternatives such as skip silence, recording through a Bluetooth microphone, stereo, volume boost, etc. Both of the versions are accessible in Google Play.

Parrot Voice Recorder

 The Parrot Voice recording app comes with easy to use features and options to start recording voices, sound, and phone calls in great quality. Once you have made a recording, you can likewise play the recorded sound in the full waveform. There is a Pro version of the application that has a call recording feature alongside Cloud Backup Scheduled Recordings.

And of course, for even crisper and clearer recordings, be sure to purchase an external microphone.

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7 Best Hiking GPS Apps For Backcountry Travel (Free & Paid)

Off-trail travel isn’t easy, but it’s a lot easier than it used to be thanks to GPS apps. With a reliable backcountry GPS app, you can tell exactly where you are and where you need to go.

Having detailed maps in the backcountry and being able to check my precise GPS location has completely changed the way I approach climbing, skiing, and hiking. In this guide, I’ll review 7 of the best hiking GPS apps and explain what to look for when choosing backcountry navigation tools.

The 7 Best Backcountry GPS Apps

Overall best backcountry gps app: caltopo.

Android & iOS

Free (offline maps from $20/year)

• Shaded relief base maps
• High-resolution slope angle shading
• Excellent web platform for trip planning
• Tons of map overlays
• Not great for track recording

This whole guide could be reduced to a glowing review for Caltopo. Simply put, there’s no better backcountry GPS app and nothing else you need to get around on-trail or off.

Caltopo’s shaded relief base maps are the best of any mapping app I’ve tried. Even without the topo lines you’d have a pretty good sense of what’s uphill and how steep it is. If you don’t love the base maps like I do, Caltopo also has Forest Service maps and scanned topo maps.

The next best feature is slope angle shading. I can’t overstate how important this is when creating your own routes in steep terrain and for navigating avalanche terrain in winter. The data Caltopo uses for slope angle shading is extremely high resolution, so it captures features that don’t show up in the topo lines.

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There are so many more advanced features to Caltopo, including an outstanding website for trip planning and integration with real-time Sentinel satellite imagery. I can’t recommend this app highly enough.

Best GPS App for Recording Routes: Gaia GPS

Android, iOS

Free (offline maps from $39.99/year)

• Good organizational features
• Lots of map layers
• Excels at track recording
• Very easy to use
• Expensive compared to other apps

Gaia GPS is an incredibly popular GPS app and my favorite hiking app for years before I switched to Caltopo.

There’s a lot to like about Gaia GPS. The base maps are great, it’s easy to organize routes you have planned, and there are tons of trail map overlays to choose from. You can also use Gaia GPS with an Apple Watch, which is great for following a track.

The main reason I switched from Gaia GPS is that you need a premium membership for slope angle shading, which is a bummer since Gaia GPS is already somewhat pricey compared to other hiking apps. The price is still affordable in the big scheme of mountaineering, though, so don’t let this dissuade you.

One of the key advantages to Gaia GPS is that its route recording tools are excellent. You can pause recording at any time or continue a track from one day to the next even if you turn your phone off overnight. If you like to keep track of your mileage and elevation gain across trips, Gaia GPS makes it easy.

Best for Offline Navigation: BackCountry Navigator

From $15/year

• Grid-based system for offline maps
• Includes PDF topo maps
• Great base maps
• Huge variety of map overlays
• Doesn’t offer slope angle shading

BackCountry Navigator is another highly reliable GPS app for off-trail travel. It shares a lot of features in common with Caltopo and Gaia GPS, including excellent shaded relief base maps and a huge selection of map overlays.

One of the things that stands out about BackCountry Navigator is its grid-based system for downloading offline maps. This makes it easier to download just the area you need, so you don’t take up a ton of storage space on your phone with maps. BackCountry Navigator also has PDF versions of Forest Service topo maps, which can be cool if you want to practice traditional navigation with a compass.

Like Caltopo and Gaia GPS, BackCountry Navigator offers a web-based route planner that syncs automatically to the mobile app. So, it’s easy to plan out routes from the comfort of home and then follow them in the backcountry.

Best App for Hikers: AllTrails

Free (offline maps cost $35.99/year)

• Find trails to hike anywhere in the world
• Get alerts if you stray off-route
• Simple track recording tools
• Free version available
• Expensive for offline maps
• Very limited off-trail mapping capabilities

If you’re planning to stick to hiking trails, you don’t need as much navigational firepower as apps like Caltopo and Gaia GPS offer. AllTrails was built specifically for on-trail adventures and it’s a great app for casual hikers. The maps aren’t incredible, but you can easily record a track and even get alerts if you start to stray off your planned route.

The real reason an avid hiker should choose AllTrails is that it can help you figure out where to go hiking. The trail guide database in this popular hiking app includes more than 100,000 trails with detailed hike descriptions. You can filter trails by location, length, difficulty, trail conditions, and more.

If you start hiking and decide you want a longer or shorter day, the AllTrails app makes it easy to see what trails are nearby so you can adjust your route. AllTrails also has a strong hiking community where you can chat with fellow hikers.

Best for Mapping Land Ownership: OnX Backcountry

Free (offline maps cost $29.99/year)

• Best-in-class land management overlays
• Identify easements through private land
• Slope angle and aspect overlays for backcountry skiing
• Integrated weather and avalanche forecasts
• Trail vs. Snow Mode distinction is annoying

In some areas of the country, it’s important to know who the land manager is. For example, in the North Cascades, the rules around backcountry travel are completely different if you’re within national park boundaries or on Forest Service-managed land. Some climbs also require navigating around private land or through easements.

OnX Backcountry offers by far the best map overlays for understanding land management. OnX got its start in the hunting space, where land ownership is a big deal. No other app offers nearly as much detail about who owns each parcel of land or highlights easements.

The OnX Backcountry app also offers a ton of other important navigation features, including slope angle shading, route tracking, and customizable waypoints. It also has some neat features specifically for ski touring, including slope aspect shading, real-time weather forecasts, and avalanche forecasts.

Best for 3D Mapping: Maps 3D Pro

• See your route in 3D
• Plan routes in the app
• Download offline maps
• Inexpensive
• Very limited navigation features
• Not available for Android devices

If you struggle with understanding terrain from topo lines alone, Maps 3D Pro can be a game-changer. This app renders the terrain in 3D so you can see how a route climbs to a summit. It’s really neat to be able to see how a particular climb follows terrain features like ribs and gullies.

Maps 3D Pro is far from a serious off-trail navigation tool. But it’s inexpensive and you can download maps offline, so it’s worth checking out if you enjoy having 3D maps in the backcountry.

Best for Peak Identification: PeakVisor

Free on iOS, $4.99 on Android

• Identify peaks around you
• Neat AR features
• Free for iOS
• Very limited GPS functionality

PeakVisor is another fun hiking app that you’ll be glad to have when you’re standing on a summit and looking out at nearby mountains. With this mountain identification app, you simply point your phone at the horizon and PeakVisor will label each of the peaks.

The app works around the world, which is pretty nice. It also offers some 3D mapping features, although these aren’t very useful for navigation. The app is completely free for iOS users, but there’s a $4.99 charge for the Android app.

How Can a Hiking App Help in the Backcountry?

It wasn’t that long ago that traveling off-trail meant having to stop every 30 minutes to spend 10 minutes checking the map and trying to figure out where you were. It was all too easy to end up hiking the wrong drainage, climbing the wrong gully, or even summiting the wrong peak altogether.

Backcountry GPS apps have completely changed off-trail travel. It’s no longer a guessing game and you can even download a GPS track from someone who’s done the route before. Having a backcountry app for navigation and knowing how to use it makes it much easier to move through complex terrain without getting lost.

The other big advantage GPS apps bring to the table is that they offer outstanding trip planning features. Before you ever leave home, you can use map overlays, other climbers’ GPX files, and slope angle shading to figure out the best way to approach a mountain. These apps offer much more detail than a traditional paper map, saving you from heading out on a route that’s doomed to fail.

What Features Should a Good Hiking App Have?

I rely heavily on GPS apps for mountaineering, and I’ve found a few features that I simply can’t live without anymore.

Offline Maps

It goes without saying, there usually isn’t cell service in the backcountry. So, having the ability to download offlines maps is an absolute must.

Virtually all of the best GPS apps offer offline maps, but this feature is usually reserved for the premium version of each app. Most hiking apps are pretty affordable and I’d argue this is one of the best investments you can make for backcountry adventuring.

One thing to pay attention to is how much data is included when you download maps. Apps like Caltopo include a ton of overlays with downloads, including slope angle shading. Backcountry Navigator gives you more control over the area you download so you don’t use up all the storage space on your smartphone.

It might sound silly, but the quality of the base maps that each hiking app uses can make a big difference. Shaded relief maps let you quickly judge the terrain without having to squint at topo lines. 

Virtually all top GPS apps offer Forest Service topos and other base map options. But try actually using these to navigate and you’ll quickly realize that a good set of default maps is pretty important.

Map Overlays

Map overlays are awesome, and you’ll find some really unique overlays in the GPS apps I reviewed. There are few overlays that I think are critical features.

Slope angle shading map overlays are the best thing to happen to backcountry navigation since GPS itself. These overlays show you terrain features that are hidden between contour lines and make it far easier to judge the best route up a mountain. Slope angle shading is also a crucial safety feature for ski touring and winter hiking when you need to be able to identify avalanche terrain.

Satellite imagery overlays are also really useful. You can see what areas still have snow, where crevasses are located on glaciers, and whether a ridge is too sheer to be climbable.

Other helpful overlays to look for include burn area maps, land ownership maps, cell coverage maps, and slope aspect maps.

Track Recording

Most hiking apps let you record your GPS track, but some do it better than others. For example, Gaia GPS lets you pause your recording, which is great if you don’t want to include a side trip in your route. If you do record your tracks, be mindful that your hiking app will use up a lot of battery life.

Hiking App FAQs

Can you use your phone as a hiking gps.

Hiking GPS apps like Caltopo, Gaia GPS, and BackCountry Navigator let you use your phone to navigate in the backcountry. You can download offline maps, see your exact location, and plot routes to follow on-trail or off.

Is there a better app than AllTrails?

AllTrails is great for discovering on-trail hikes and staying on-trail. If you want to head off-trail, however, apps like Caltopo and Gaia GPS offer far more navigational features and map overlays.

Do I need a separate GPS for hiking?

Google Maps and similar GPS apps don’t work well for hiking. They have a very limited database of trails and you can’t see any details about the terrain around you. Dedicated hiking GPS apps offer topographic maps and overlays to help you find your way in the backcountry. 

How do you track someone while hiking?

You can record your own track while hiking using a backcountry GPS app or even a fitness app. However, if you want to track someone else, they’ll need to have a satellite communication device like an inReach.

How can I track my hiking distance?

Most hiking GPS apps let you record a track so you can see how far you’ve gone and how much elevation you’ve gained. You can also use a fitness app to track your hiking distance, although these don’t offer as many mapping features.

I live in Bellingham, Washington, at the base of the wild North Cascades. Over the last ten years, I've explored much of the region's steep terrain and endless layers of ridges and peaks, both on foot and on skis, often linking far-flung ridges together to push deeper into the range.

*The information on this site is based on research and first-hand experience but should not be treated as medical advice. Before beginning any new activity, we recommend consulting with a physician, nutritionist or other relevant professional healthcare provider.

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10 Apps That Will Make The Most Of Your Vacation In 2024

I f you've ever spent time at a networking event, made small talk at your kids' soccer games, or scrolled through a dating app, you'll know that "travel" is something almost everyone will tell you they enjoy. Couple that with an attachment to our smartphones that borders on co-dependent, and it's no surprise to learn that travel apps are a hot commodity. Some of the best innovations in travel come in the form of apps. Staying in touch with people at home, travel planning, staying organized on the road, or connecting with other travelers? Not only is there an app for that, there are many apps for that. 

To help you sort through the plethora of what's out there, here are some travel-ready apps to make your vacation a blast. We've sourced suggestions from people who travel for a living and those who leave their local area only rarely, so no matter how often you jet-set, there is an app for you.

Read more: 12 Smart Gadgets You Didn't Know Existed

If your cell plan doesn't include international roaming, you can get slammed with steep fees for using mobile data outside your own country.

There are a few ways to get around roaming charges, including buying a local SIM card for the country you are traveling in, using a Wi-Fi stick , or investing in a dual SIM phone, like those from Samsung, Apple, or Google. One of the easiest and cheapest options though, is an eSIM app like Airalo . Airalo was one of the first in the eSIM game and continues to be popular with travelers. Fans of the app point to how easy it is to download and get started quickly, and how much it saves in fees. On the other hand, some users have noticed a discrepancy in how well it works in different countries. One reviewer on TrustPilot states "We do NOT recommend this plan given the extremely poor performance in Vietnam" despite noting excellent service in Hong Kong. 

Airalo is a paid service, available on the App Store and on Google Play.

Google Maps is often the default app travelers reach for when navigating new territory. It's a trusted resource for a lot of reasons, including the ease of finding reviews and info for even very small businesses. But it's not the only map app out there, nor is it the best in every situation. The main advantage of Maps.me over Google Maps is that it is based on user-generated information. Particularly for folks who are getting around on foot, this "boots on the ground" approach is excellent and more direct than reporting problems to Google Maps . It also means that if you find a cool place on your travels and want to make sure other travelers can find it, you can add it to a map.

Like Google Maps and other useful way-finding apps, you can download maps and bookmark points of interest for offline use, although the background information on locations is not as robust as on Google Maps. Maps.me also allows you to access various modes of transportation while offline, which Google doesn't. 

Maps.me is free to download and available from the App Store and from Google Play.

Cash's position as king is increasingly precarious. On your travels, you'll find cashless options in places you might not expect. The mass availability of mobile payment platforms like Square means you may be able to whip out your phone or card at Swiss coffee carts or Mexican street vendors. Wise (formerly Transferwise) lets you move between currencies seamlessly. Wise lets you operate in 40 currencies, which is particularly handy if you are traveling to several different countries. They advertise charges that are less than the major banks. However, some users have complained about complications with money transfers, so be forewarned if you intend to use this app for sending money. 

Of note to travelers is the option to get an actual bank card that can function as an international debit card with a nominal conversion fee (not all bank cards can pay by debit in countries other than your home base.) Or, save a step and scan your phone to pay from your Wise account. 

Wise is available on the App Store and from Google Play. There is no charge to download the app, but fees are charged for some banking activities.

If you are going to be traveling from place to place on your vacation, you will want the Rome2Rio app on your phone. Enter your destination and departure location, and the app spits out the options and approximate costs for each leg of your journey. For instance, if you are in Edmonton, Canada, and want to get to the Thai island of Ko Yao Yai, the app will suggest six options, labeling the best, cheapest, and fastest combination of flight, minibus, and ferry. You can't purchase tickets through the app, although there are links to book accommodation that take you to Booking.com. Being able to purchase travel fares through the app would make things easier, especially if they were offered in a package, but the absence of that feature means you can investigate and compare prices from different booking operators , so we are putting it in the win column.

Rome2Rio is free to download and available from the App Store and from Google Play.

Rick Steves Audio Europe

Rick Steves is recognized as a top voice in travel guides. His down-to-earth approach to travel has endeared multitudes of followers to him, spawning an industry of books, television shows, and a sprawling web presence that features how-to guides, articles, and an active travelers' forum. On top of all that, he has a free app for self-guided walking tours through many of Europe's top sights called Rick Steves Audio Europe . Reviewers of the app give it a high rating (4.7 on Google Play and 4.3 on the App Store) using superlatives like "This app is GOLD," and comparing the quality of the tours to paid audio tours. On the downside, it is difficult to sync the app on multiple devices, so if you are in a group you may all be at slightly different parts of the tour, which can be mildly annoying. There are a bunch of tour sites, with more added periodically.

The audio tours and accompanying maps are downloadable, so you don't need to worry about burning through mobile data or needing to rely on Wi-Fi. Rick Steve Audio Europe is free to download and available from the App Store and from Google Play.

How many trips come vividly back to life in your mind just by thinking about that one excellent bowl of Cacio e Pepe pasta or sun-drenched sip of a Paloma? Exploring a place through its flavors and discovering new spots to eat is a beloved part of travel. In Europe, TheFork (the French version is called LaForchette) is the go-to app for crowd-sourced restaurant reviews. Previously, the app also covered Australia, but at the start of 2024, it was announced they will be pulling out of Oz.

You can find Michelin-starred restaurants with months-long wait lists or little hole-in-the-wall spots by searching the name of the eating establishment, the city or neighborhood you want to eat in, or the kind of cuisine you are craving.

The app is worthy of its space on your phone just for the restaurant listings and reviews, but if you want to explore more of the capabilities, there are ways to expand its usefulness. You can make reservations, register to collect points, access discounts and specials at select spots, and pay through the app. TheFork is free to download and available from the App Store and from Google Play.

Looking for a little love on the road? The Fairytrail app might be the ticket to romance (or ROAMance) you are looking for. Aimed at digital nomads and van life devotees, the app is a nice addition to the dating lives of travelers of all stripes. Members are evaluated and assigned a fairytale character similar to enneagram-slash-Myers-Briggs personality types, which is a new and novel approach compared with other iPhone dating apps or Android dating apps .

Because the app is focused on people with nomadic lifestyles, matches are location-independent. The idea is that users of the app will be willing to travel to each other to meet and date. There is a setting that allows an extra layer of matching: dream places to visit. If you so choose, before chatting with a match you need to have an overlapping "bucket-list" destination. Previously, this was an unavoidable step but became an optional setting after it was changed in response to frustration expressed by reviewers. The app is being redesigned in 2024 and soliciting feedback from users. Stay tuned, it seems more happy endings are in store! Fairytrails is free to download with in-app purchases and is available from the App Store and from Google Play.

Price Scanner And Converter

A very unpleasant aspect of vacationing in another country is coming home to a shocking credit card bill. Part of the problem is the tendency of holidaymakers to spend like money isn't real, but the other problem is how difficult it is to calculate prices into your own currency. Sure, you can come up with shortcuts to do quick math, but that gives you an estimate rather than an exact cost. To help, there are many different currency converter apps out there, with features like real-time rate calculation and offline capability. The somewhat clunky-named Price Scanner and Converter takes it one step further by using your phone's camera to scan prices and display them automatically in your preferred currency (out of 150 global currencies.) New iPhone cameras also have a similar capability, but it isn't as seamless a process as using this app.

This price scanning app isn't presently available on Google Play, although there are similar apps to be found. The reviews are pretty overwhelmingly mediocre, so if you are on team Android, your best bet may be to download a regular currency converter and enter in prices the old-fashioned way.

Downloading the Price Scanner and Converter is free from the App Store.

Searching through your emails for confirmations and itineraries isn't an efficient way to access your travel information. And good luck if you have used your work email for some of your planning and your personal email for others. What if you are offline when you need to find your tour details? Nightmare fuel. Tripit has created a simple user experience, allowing you to forward all those endless travel planning emails to be arranged into an easily accessible itinerary in a single spot, which you can access from any of your devices.

Other features of this include the ability to load PDFs, QR codes, and other travel documents to your Tripit travel folder. There are helpful navigation tools, like airport maps, neighborhood safety ratings, and nearby places. You can share your travel plans and sync them to your calendar. For $49 a year (or a free 30-day trial) you can upgrade to Tripit Pro for enhanced travel aid, including notifications to help keep you on track and on time. 

Tripit is free to download from the App Store and from Google Play, and you can upgrade to the premium Tripit Pro on the Tripit website or in the app.

Mobile Passport Control

The latest app from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol goes by the wildly creative name, " Mobile Passport Control ." It's a no-nonsense app with a no-nonsense name that allows users to streamline the customs experience. Rather than filling out declarations forms, users enter their information into the app and send it to border officials so they can access it as soon as they get to customs. You can do this immediately upon arrival, say as your plane is taxiing to the gate.

The app is for United States citizens and Canadians with a B-1 or B-2 visitor visa who are entering the USA at one of 33 American airports, 11 preclearance sites, and four seaports. It works in tandem with your passport, but it doesn't replace it.

As a bonus, some sites allow those with the Mobile Passport Control app to use their own (almost always shorter!) line or expedited Global Entry lines at passport control. You can enter family members on the same app and there is no approval process, just download and go.

A previous iteration of the app had a premium, paid version, but this is no longer the case. The app is free on the App Store and Google Play.

Read the original article on SlashGear .

Kari Lake downplays 1864 abortion law, says Arizonans can travel '3 hours' for procedure

Senate candidate Kari Lake indistinctly linked illegal immigration to the climbing cost of housing in Arizona at a Tuesday morning campaign event that veered into higher-profile policy issues, including Lake’s shifting rhetoric on abortion.

Lake, the Republican Senate primary front-runner, seemed to downplay Arizona's recently upheld strict 1864 abortion ban by telling people "you can go three hours that way, three hours that way, and you're going to be able to have an abortion."

Lake was scheduled to discuss housing affordability alongside Jason Mitchell, a real estate broker.

In recent years, the already-rising cost of housing in Arizona has sharply increased. In 2022, the state had the 18th highest "housing wage" needed to rent a two-bedroom apartment. In 2023, it jumped to number 12, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s latest “Out of Reach” report .

Lake gestured broadly to the issue of illegal immigration, the linchpin of her campaign, to explain that trend.

“We don't have enough housing for the people who are here. Now we've got 9 to 12 million. That adds additional stress to the system,” Lake said to dozens of people at Mitchell’s office in Scottsdale, referring to the estimated number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

Immigration is among the factors that can influence the price of housing in U.S. cities. Economists disagree about why housing is so expensive, but many view shortages in the housing supply or corporate ownership of the housing stock as the greatest contributing factors.

In an interview before the event, Mitchell said he doesn’t believe that illegal immigration is driving up the cost of buying a home. He said it’s plausible that immigrants are driving up the cost of renting because they, like other occupants, eat into the rental supply.

“The less supply of something there is, the more expensive it costs. That’s just basic economics,” Mitchell said.

Onstage, Lake and Mitchell bemoaned crime committed by undocumented migrants in Scottsdale, one of the Phoenix area’s wealthier cities . Police have told local media that burglaries in Scottsdale have fallen overall in recent years, though this year saw a highly publicized pattern of thefts that police say were committed by South American immigrants.

“The only way, frankly, to save our homeland is to send these people back to their homeland,” Lake said.

Mitchell, Lake’s interlocutor, leads a firm that promotes itself online as a luxury real estate company selling homes to clients like the retired former Phoenix Suns player Eddie Johnson. In an interview, Mitchell said the firm’s average purchase price is around $470,000, not much higher than the statewide median .

Mitchell has argued that simply building more housing won’t solve the problem. Instead he has advocated using taxes to dissuade wealthy investors from buying up large numbers of homes, which politicians on both the left and right have said takes units out of the housing supply and drives up prices for ordinary people.

Lake suggested her support for that view on Tuesday.

“I want to find ways to make sure that people, first-time homeowners, and families can get into homes, and not be outbid or even underbid by hedge funds and such,” she said.

Later, Mitchell asked Lake to explain her “shift on abortion.” While running for governor during the last election cycle, Lake called the near-total ban on abortion, enacted while Arizona was still a territory, a "great law" . After the Arizona Supreme Court upheld that law in a decision last week, Lake said the 1864 law she once praised was "out of step with Arizonans."

Lake responded that she has “never shifted” in her opposition to a federal abortion ban and downplayed the impact of the 1864 law. She said people wanting an abortion could seek one in another state and referenced Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’ announcement that she will not prosecute any abortion bans.

“Everyone’s fighting about a law that’s not even going to be enforced here in Arizona,” Lake said. 

“Even if we have a restrictive law here,” Lake continued, “you can go three hours that way, three hours that way, and you're going to be able to have an abortion.”

Mayes’ decision could be challenged by one of the state's county attorneys.

A memo circulated Monday by a GOP legislative staffer revealed that Arizona Republicans are considering putting forward competing proposals to weaken support for a widely anticipated ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights into Arizona’s Constitution.

“I think our lawmakers need to do something quickly, and that's putting another initiative on the ballot to give people options,” Lake said on Tuesday.

Political observers believe the issue of abortion could be a major liability for Lake and other Arizona Republicans’ campaigns this election year. On top of sweeping consequences for prenatal health care in Arizona, the abortion restrictions are likely to boost Democratic turnout in statewide elections like Lake’s that are widely expected to be razor-thin.

Lake’s likely Democratic opponent in the November general election is Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz. She faces a GOP primary challenger in Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb.

In recent remarks, Gallego has taken direct aim at Lake over her past support for the 1864 law.

"She wanted this to happen," Gallego said of Lake. "They all did. Do not let them lie to you."

Republic reporter Catherine Reagor contributed to this story.

Woman tried to board flight at Memphis Airport with 56 pounds of marijuana: Reports

Before a 21-year-old Memphis woman could board an United Airlines flight, Memphis International Airport Police found 56 pounds of marijuana in her luggage, according to multiple reports.

The woman was charged with possession of a controlled substance with the intention to manufacture, deliver or sell, Shelby County jail records show. This charge is a felony offense that "carries harsh penalties," the Law Office of Bernie McEvoy , an attorney in Nashville, Tennessee, said.

The woman is now free after posting a $5,000 bond, according to Shelby County jail records.

TSA best catches: Naruto throwing knives, weed diaper, projectile and more

Woman allowed airport police to check her luggage, had name tag on bags, according to reports

Memphis airport police caught the woman Sunday after finding her luggage "busted open" on a United Airlines bag cart, WMC-TV reported. The woman's name tag was attached to the bags, the Memphis, Tennessee-based TV station said.

After locating the woman's luggage, she gave airport police permission to search her bags, WMC-TV said. Once the drugs were found, she was subsequently arrested.

USA TODAY contacted Memphis International Airport Police on Thursday and was told the department is working to provide a police report.

How much would 56 pounds of marijuana go for on the street?

When a St. Paul, Minnesota man was arrested for possessing 56 pounds of marijuana in May 2013, now-retired Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom estimated the drugs had a street value between $171,000 and $342,000, WCCO , branded CBS Minnesota, reported.

More recently, the Butler County Sheriff's Office seized 56 pounds of marijuana from a property in El Dorado, Kansas in July 2021 and valued the drugs at $180,000, the Wichita Eagle reported.