Best Apps to Track Your Travel History in 2026 (Honest Comparison)
· Nen
You've been to 30 countries. You can say that number without thinking.
What you can't say — not off the top of your head — is what your last trip to Japan actually cost, which UNESCO World Heritage Sites you walked into rather than drove past, or how many airports you transited through last year.
The count is easy. The record is harder. This article is about the record.
This is not a list of trip planners or GPS trackers. Every app here is evaluated for one purpose: logging travel you've already done. Past record. The places you've been, not the itinerary you're building.
Quick comparison
| App | Best for | Free tier | Paid from | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MapMyWorld | Full depth record — expenses, UNESCO, airports | Unlimited places | $7.99/mo | ★★★★★ |
| Polarsteps | GPS auto-tracked active trips | Limited | $3.99/mo | ★★★☆☆ |
| Visited | Country count only | Full (ads) | $4.99/mo | ★★☆☆☆ |
| Been | Single world % metric | Full | Free | ★★☆☆☆ |
| Wanderlog | Trip planning (not tracking) | Good | $5.99/mo | ★★★☆☆ |
| Google My Maps | Free DIY mapping | Full | Free | ★★☆☆☆ |
What to look for in a travel tracking app
Before the list, a clarification most roundups skip.
There are two completely different kinds of travel apps, and they are constantly lumped together.
Active GPS tracking apps (Polarsteps, Moves) record your movement automatically, in real time, while you travel. They are powerful if you remember to install them before every trip — and useless for the decade of travel you did before you found the app.
Manual travel record apps (MapMyWorld, Visited) let you log places you have been, whether last week or twenty years ago. No GPS required. No battery drain. No background location access.
If you are reading this article, you almost certainly want the second kind. Here is what actually matters:
Past record coverage. Can you add a trip from 2012? Does the app support CSV or KML import for retroactive data? If the answer is no, the app only captures future travel — which is not a travel record, it is a prospective log. If you have 20+ countries already behind you, an app that ignores them ignores most of your history.
Depth of data. Country count is the output, not the product. Does the app track expenses, UNESCO sites, airports, specific places — or just which countries you have been to? The country list is a headline; the record is everything beneath it.
Multi-currency expense tracking. If you travel across currencies, an expense tracker without automatic home-currency conversion is just arithmetic with extra steps. Per-trip totals in a single currency are the minimum viable feature.
Export options. Your travel history belongs to you. Any app that does not let you export your own data should be treated as a liability.
Privacy. An app that requires GPS-always-on to function is not a record app — it is a surveillance app with a travel interface. Manual logging is not a compromise; for most serious travellers, it is the deliberate choice.
1. MapMyWorld — Best for depth and the full record
MapMyWorld is built around one idea: the country count is where most travel apps stop, and where the real record begins.
The core product is a personal world map where every pin is connected to something — a trip, an expense, a UNESCO site, a timestamp. Nothing floats loose. Every place you log is part of a layer.
What it tracks:
- Places — Pin every location on your personal world map. Cities, restaurants, temples, train stations. Each one is dated, trip-linked, and searchable.
- Trips — Organise places into trips with dates, notes, photos, and full cost breakdowns. 18 trip types.
- Expenses — 27 categories, multi-currency with automatic conversion to your home currency. For the first time, you can answer "what did that trip to Southeast Asia actually cost?" without building a spreadsheet.
- UNESCO sites — 1,200+ World Heritage Sites. Log which ones you have actually been inside versus driven past. Get recommendations based on places you have already logged.
- Airports — All 7,906 airports. Every departure, arrival, and layover — trip-linked and searchable. Built for people who know exactly how many times they have transited through Changi.
- Achievements — 33 badges across geography, travel style, and depth of record. Some visible from the start; some hidden.
- Share card — A branded PNG of your complete travel stats: country count, place count, UNESCO sites, airports visited, years of travel. One image that shows what your record actually looks like.
Retroactive import: Yes — CSV and KML import on Pro. You can reconstruct trips from before you found the app, which is the only way a record covering your full travel history is possible.
Honest limitation: Web-first. No native iOS or Android app at the time of writing, though a PWA is available. If a native mobile app is a hard requirement, note this before committing.
Pricing:
- Free: Unlimited countries, unlimited places, 3 trips
- Pro Monthly: $7.99/month
- Pro Annual: $59.99/year (works out to $5/month — save 37%)
- Lifetime: $199.99 — one payment, everything in Pro, no recurring fee
Who it is for: Travellers with real history who want more than a count. If you have 20+ countries and cannot answer basic questions about your own travel record, this is what the category was missing.
2. Polarsteps — Best for active trip sharing
Polarsteps has 15 million users and a genuinely good product — provided you understand what it is and what it is not.
It is a GPS journey tracker. It records your movement automatically while you travel, builds a visual timeline of your route, and makes sharing a trip in real time genuinely easy. The design is polished and the social layer is its genuine strength.
What it does well:
- Automatic GPS tracking means zero manual effort during a trip
- Beautiful route visualisation and active timeline
- Sharing a trip with friends and family is where the product shines
What it cannot do:
- Retroactive import: If you did not have Polarsteps installed before a trip, that trip does not exist in your record. There is no way to add travel history from before you downloaded the app.
- Expense tracking: Not a feature.
- Airport log: Not a feature.
- UNESCO site linking: Not a feature.
- Battery and privacy: GPS-always-on means constant battery use and continuous location tracking. This is worth naming before committing.
The core limitation is not a product flaw — it is a category difference. Polarsteps records movement. Movement is not the same as memory, and a GPS track is not the same as a travel record.
Pricing: Free tier available. Paid plans from approximately $3.99/month.
Who it is for: Active travellers who want trips documented automatically as they happen, and who value the social sharing aspect. Not the right tool if you want to document travel from before you downloaded the app.
3. Visited — Best for country count only
Visited is honest about what it is: a country counter. You tap countries you have been to, they colour in, and the app tells you what percentage of the world you have visited.
That is the product. There is nothing beneath it.
No places. No trips. No expenses. No dates. No UNESCO sites. A list of countries, a world map, and a percentage.
For one specific use case — you want a visual country count and nothing else — Visited works. It is clean, loads fast, and the free tier is full-featured (supported by ads).
Pricing: Free with ads. $4.99/month to remove them.
Who it is for: Someone who wants a country count app and nothing more. If you find yourself wanting to add a single place name, trip note, or travel date, this is the wrong tool.
4. Wanderlog — Best for trip planning (not tracking)
Wanderlog is a trip planner. It is good at collaborative itineraries, restaurant lists, and route optimisation — which is a different product category from travel recording.
The confusion comes from the fact that Wanderlog has a map and lets you save places. That is not the same as a travel record. There is no meaningful way to reconstruct past travel in Wanderlog, because past travel is not what the product is designed for.
A trip you are building is not the same as a trip you have already taken. Wanderlog is the right tool for the first; it is not the right tool for the second.
Who it is for: People planning a trip collaboratively. Not the right tool for documenting travel history.
5. Been — Simplest world percentage tracker
Been is a single-metric app: mark countries, get a world percentage. Simpler interface than Visited, same limitation. One number. Nothing more.
Pricing: Free.
Who it is for: Someone who wants a world percentage figure and nothing else.
6. Google My Maps — Best free DIY option
Google My Maps lets you create custom maps with pins, layers, and labels. It is completely free, familiar, and flexible.
It is not a travel app.
There are no dates. No trip structure. No expense tracking. No UNESCO linking. No export format built for travel history. It is a blank mapping canvas — powerful if you are willing to build your own structure, limited if you want the record to mean something without manual architecture.
The Japan problem is a Google My Maps problem: you can pin every shrine, every restaurant, every neighbourhood. Most people stop after ten pins. The blank canvas is the enemy of the complete record.
Who it is for: Technically confident people who want total flexibility and do not mind constructing their own system from scratch. Not a scalable answer for serious travel tracking.
What most travel tracking apps get wrong
Most apps in this category make the same mistake: they treat the country count as the product.
It is not. The country count is the headline. The record is the story beneath it.
GPS is not memory. Polarsteps captures movement — the route taken, the distance covered. It does not capture what you spent, which UNESCO sites you entered, what the trip cost in total, or why any of it mattered. A GPS trace is not a travel record. It is a breadcrumb trail.
Country count is the output, not the input. Visited and Been give you a percentage. That percentage is earned and meaningful — but it is a compression of the record, not the record itself. Knowing you have been to Portugal is different from knowing you visited Sintra and the Douro Valley, spent €1,600 over nine days, transited Lisbon airport four times, and walked into three UNESCO sites.
Retroactive coverage is the test. Any app that can only record travel from the day you install it is not a travel record — it is a prospective log with a map skin. If you have 20+ countries behind you, the app that ignores them ignores most of your history.
Planning and recording are different jobs. An itinerary builder is not a travel record. The tools in this category are frequently confused with trip planners. They are not the same product and the distinction matters: one tells you where to go, the other holds where you have been.
The verdict
For the full travel record: MapMyWorld. It is the only app in this list that treats expenses, UNESCO sites, airports, and specific places as first-class data — not afterthoughts bolted onto a country count. If your travel history matters to you beyond the number, this is the gap in the category.
For active trip sharing: Polarsteps. It does what it does well — GPS tracking and social sharing — and it is honest about the trade-offs. Use it for active trips if sharing in real time is what you want.
For a simple country count: Visited or Been. One metric, cleanly done.
For trip planning: Wanderlog. Strong product, wrong category for this list.
The honest version: most people reading this have 20+ countries, a half-finished spreadsheet they stopped updating, and travel history that deserves a proper record. The app for that is MapMyWorld.
Published July 2026. Written by Nen, founder of MapMyWorld. Nen built MapMyWorld after coming home from Japan with too many places to add to Google My Maps. Read more →