How TripPhoto works

Upload photos – EXIF/GPS automatically become a map, route and daily stages.

1. Open “Trips” and create a new trip with a title and description.
2. Upload up to 5 photos at a time (15 with Pro) – HEIC from the iPhone is converted in the browser.
3. Capture time and GPS automatically build day stages and map points.
4. A red frame flags photos without a date – fix it in the edit area.
5. If a point is off, just drag it to the right place on the map – the route recomputes.
6. TripPhoto names untitled trips itself after a short while, based on the places visited.

Car journeys follow real roads, train journeys the rails; ship and flight appear as an arc. The transport mode can be chosen per leg or is detected.

1. Pick the transport mode on upload, or “Detect automatically”.
2. “Automatic” derives walk, bike, car or flight per leg from distance and time.
3. Set train or ship per photo when needed; the route recomputes instantly.
4. Correct recorded legs right on the map: tap the line and choose the transport mode – or move the change to the right spot with “up to here” or “from here”.

The iPhone app records your path in the background – even where you take no photos.

1. Pick a trip in the app and tap “Record” – one tap is enough.
2. Presets per transport mode (walk, bike, car, train, flight) set interval and accuracy accordingly.
3. “Pause automatically when still” halts recording when you stand still for a while and resumes as soon as you move on – saving battery and avoiding point clouds.
4. Pro detects the transport mode itself and records changes automatically.
5. Car and bike journeys are snapped to real roads, walks stay exactly as you walked them – together with photos and waypoints they form the route.

Bring tracks from other devices and apps: GPX, KML, KMZ, GeoJSON and CSV.

1. On the trip page choose the file under “Import a recording”.
2. Optionally set one transport mode for all imported points.
3. The points feed route, elevation profile and statistics – just like your own recordings.
4. Named placemarks from the file become labelled waypoints.
5. Very long recordings are thinned evenly; start and end are kept.

A smoothed chart across the whole trip – linked to the map timeline.

1. The profile appears automatically as soon as a trip has track points or photos with altitude data.
2. Move across the chart – the map jumps to the matching spot, and vice versa.
3. Without a recording, altitude is read from the photos’ EXIF data.
4. The axis shows either distance or time. With “Time” you see how long a leg really took – otherwise a short walk is barely visible next to a long drive.

Everyone sees distance and duration. Pro adds elevation gain, breaks, speed and the trip’s records.

1. The figures are shown on the trip page in the “Profile” section – computed without any action from you.
2. Pro also shows the highest point, northernmost/southernmost point, longest day, most photographed day and warmest day.
3. Automatic day stages summarise every day – including pure travel days without photos.

Add points without a photo – via GPS on your phone – e.g. a car → train change.

1. On the trip page open “Your waypoints” → “Add waypoint”.
2. On mobile tap “Current location (GPS)”, otherwise tap the map or enter coordinates.
3. Choose the transport mode and add a name/note; “Private” hides it from the public story.
4. Waypoints can be edited any time – ideal for recording transport changes later.

Destination, days, interests – the planner builds complete routes with real drive times and learns from other travellers’ plans. Try it without an account, save it with one.

1. Under “Planner” set destination, days, pace and interests – no sign-in needed.
2. You get three routes to choose from: shortest drive, best photo spots, most variety – with drive time per day.
3. Tick places under “I want to see this” that must be included – the routes recalculate right away, without reloading the page.
4. What-if: one day more or less, not before 7 am, less driving, more wildlife – in one click.
5. To save a route you sign in – you then continue right where you left off.
6. In a saved plan: search for a sight and add it to a day in one click, add your own stops (hotel, restaurant), drag to reorder. “Regenerate” rebuilds the other stops – yours stay.
7. “Other travellers also have …”: the plan shows places that people with similar stops often include – added to the right day in one click. Counted only from three people on, no one can be identified.
8. What many keep or add themselves, the planner suggests more readily in future; what is often removed, less so.
9. “Print” opens a plain print version with an overview map and a table per day – also as a PDF from the print dialog. “Download Excel” gives all stops with times, kilometres, stay and coordinates.
10. Compare two plans side by side.
11. Want the whole route around the light? Choose it in the “Golden hour” step – otherwise it comes as a daily tip.

The best-known sights on the map – with a picture, a short description and visit length, ready to add to a plan. Plus photo spots from real community shots.

1. Under “Discover” → “Sights”, move the map or choose a region: the list shows the best-known places in view.
2. Filter by type – nature, coast, history, city & buildings, museums & art, leisure & family – or search by name.
3. “Add to plan” puts the place on a day of your plan; “Start a new plan with it” opens the planner with the place as a must-see.
4. Under “Spots”: places where at least three people have taken photos – there are no paid listings.

Ready-made routes to follow – such as Route 66 or Texas in ten days. View without an account, take one over as your own plan in one click.

1. Open a route under “Sample routes” (footer): map, day by day with drive times and description.
2. “Take over this route” puts a copy into your plans – freely editable afterwards.
3. Sample routes can be printed or downloaded as Excel too.

Climate charts for cities in the north, south, east and west: highs, lows, rain and the most pleasant months at a glance.

1. Choose a city under “When to go” (footer) – measured monthly averages for 2015–2024.
2. The line above the chart names the months that are warm and fairly dry, and warns of heat from 35 °C.
3. “All values as a table” adds rain days and sunshine hours. Data: Open-Meteo.

ESTA, passports for children, national park fees, driving licence, customs: a timeline to tick off and the rules with official sources and a check date.

1. Tick off the timeline under “USA trip checklist” (footer) – from “3 months before” to the travel day. Your browser remembers the ticks.
2. Every topic names its official sources (German Foreign Office, US authorities, customs) – if in doubt, what they currently say applies.

Every trip becomes a cinematic story with map, timeline and gallery – shareable by link.

1. Open “View as story” on the trip page; set the cover and visibility on the trip page.
2. “Unlisted” creates a link (/s/…): only people with the link can see the story. “Public” also lists it under “Discover”.
3. Private photos, hidden locations and private waypoints stay invisible in the shared story.
4. If you set a trip back to “Private”, its image addresses stop working – even for someone who copied them.
5. Sharing by link is free for everyone; public listing comes with Pro.

A cinematic flight along the route – the map flies your trip, photo by photo.

1. Tap the flight button above the map on the trip or story page.
2. The view switches to a cinema format and follows the route; a card shows place, time and photo.
3. Leave any time with Escape or the close button.

The same route over a real elevation model – only there do you see what a mountain pass really was.

1. On the trip page, tap the mountain icon above the timeline.
2. The map tilts, the terrain rises, and the route lies on top of it.
3. The slider at the top right sets the exaggeration – it makes flatter country readable.
4. Drag to rotate, two fingers to tilt. Escape or the cross closes it again.
5. The map library for this loads only when you tap – if you never look in 3D, you never wait for it.

Every story becomes a travel book at the push of a button: title page, one day per page, map and photos.

1. Tap “Print / PDF” in the story and choose “Save as PDF” in the print dialog.
2. Controls, timeline and comments are hidden; every day starts on a new page.
3. Enable “Background graphics” in the print dialog so cover and colours come along.
4. Trip plans have their own print version: tap “Print” in the plan – overview map and a table per day, black on white.

Rate photos, trips and plans with stars. Photo stars feed the explained photo score.

1. Tap the stars under any photo (tap again to reset).
2. The photo score combines light, weather, place notability – and your stars (25%).

Mark favorites; set the cover image in the edit area of a photo.

1. Tap the heart on a photo to add it to favorites.
2. To set the cover, edit the photo and tap “Choose as cover”.

Hide a photo from all lists/galleries – it stays only as a map point and shapes the route.

1. Edit the photo → enable “Map point only (hide from the list)”.
2. The image leaves the list, story, country page and search; the map point remains.

On iPhones with Apple Intelligence the app writes short day texts and suggests trip titles – right on the device.

1. After you stop a recording, title suggestions appear – tap to use one, or “Keep title”.
2. On the trip page in the app: “Suggest titles” and “Write day texts”.
3. The texts then appear in the story. You can edit them there; texts changed by hand are not rewritten.
4. The basis is only your trip’s distance, time, transport, places and photo counts. Numbers that are not in there are discarded and the day is written again.
5. Your trip does not go to any AI service: the language model runs on the iPhone, and it costs nothing.
6. Requires iPhone 15 Pro or later with Apple Intelligence turned on.

Wrong mode of transport or a wrong turn? Tap the line and set it right – the recording itself stays unchanged.

1. On the trip page, tap the recorded line.
2. Mode of transport: pick the right one – for the whole stage or with “Up to here” / “From here” from the tapped spot.
3. Wrong turn: “Correct the line here”, drag the point onto the road you took, “Apply” – the route is recalculated through it.
4. Drive the same stretch in the same direction again later and the line is drawn correctly by itself – provided your recording follows the corrected road there.
5. Learning uses only your own trips, and only for them.
6. Everything can be undone: “Automatic again” or “Undo line corrections”.

The weather of every travel day, sun position, blue & golden hour and moon phase – for every place and minute.

1. Every travel day gets a weather line: changes, temperatures, rain and wind – from the recording or, without one, from the place and time of your photos.
2. The app recognises on the iPhone what the sky in your photos shows (blue sky, fog, snow …) – no photo leaves the device for it.
3. In the planner: a forecast for every travel day once it is within the next two weeks.
4. Open a photo on the map – light and weather for the time it was taken load on demand. Weather data: Open-Meteo.

Signed-in users can comment below shared trips.

1. Write and submit your comment at the bottom of the trip page.
2. The author, trip owner and admin can delete comments.

TripPhoto is free, Pro included. After 5 active invitees (≥1 trip, ≥20 photos) you become Pro automatically – with no end date.

1. Open “Invite” in the account menu and enter email addresses.
2. The progress bar shows how many invitations already qualify.
3. Standard allows 7 trips and 100 photos, Pro 50 trips and unlimited photos.
4. There is nothing to buy – neither in the app nor on the website.
5. The comparison table on the features page shows what Standard, Pro and the app can each do.

Photos from a camera without GPS get their place from your own recording.

1. Record the trip with the app and upload the camera photos as usual.
2. Below the photos, “Locate photos without GPS” appears with the number of pending images.
3. One click is enough: for each capture time we look up where you were.
4. The time shift between camera and recording is measured, not guessed – even a wrongly set camera clock shows up. It is stated afterwards.
5. Calculated places can be removed again with a second button; ones you set by hand stay untouched.

The route draws itself across the map – or you drive it again in real street-level images. A portrait video for stories and reels.

1. On the trip page, below the photos, pick the type: trip film (map and photos), street film (street-level images along the route) or mix – then “Create video”.
2. The street film uses open street-level images from Mapillary (CC BY-SA); where there are none, the camera carries on over the map.
3. Every film leaves out the area around your home point – exactly the radius you set in your settings.
4. It takes about fifteen seconds and runs in your browser – nothing is uploaded.
5. At the end: preview, save and – on a phone – share directly.
6. The line colours match the map, and the distance counts up as it draws.

All recordings on top of each other: which routes do you keep taking?

1. Open “Trips” → “Heat map” – it combines all trips.
2. The more often you were somewhere, the stronger the colour.
3. Trips are counted, not measuring points: half an hour in a car park does not make a hotspot.
4. The years at the top let you look at a single year.

Your corners of the Earth, the countries you visited as a map, and your share of the land.

1. Open “Trips” → “Atlas”. At the top, visited countries are filled in.
2. The share is based on land area, not the number of countries – three tiny states are not half the world.
3. Below: your northernmost, southernmost, easternmost and westernmost points, plus equator, tropics, polar circles and the prime meridian – including how far you still are.
4. And a list of world cities you have already been to.

A year in numbers – and as a finished image to share.

1. Open “Trips” → “Recap” and pick a year top right, or “All” for everything.
2. Photos, trips, countries, places and the share taken in the golden hour are shown as figures.
3. Plus the most visited places, the best month, the busiest day and your most used camera.
4. “Share as image” turns it into a portrait card – for stories or to save.

All photos from all trips on one map – filter by trip, camera, lens and period.

1. Open “Trips” → “Map & spots”.
2. Photos close together are grouped; zooming in breaks the groups apart.
3. The filters at the top answer questions like “Where did I shoot with this lens?”.

Keep track of cameras, lenses and accessories; look up all the places from your trips.

1. “Equipment” in the account menu: this is where you add what you shoot with.
2. “Places” under “Discover” is the reference: all the places from your trips, sorted by category, with Wikipedia info.
3. The search at the top finds trips, places and photos in one go – even with typos or spelled by ear (“Noishwanstine” finds Neuschwanstein).

Report an inappropriate comment with one tap, and block anyone who bothers you – no email to the operator needed.

1. Under every comment that is not yours there is “Report”. You pick a reason, nothing more – we take a look.
2. “Block” makes a person invisible to you: their comments disappear, and they can no longer write under your trips.
3. The blocked person is not told.
4. Settings list everyone you blocked – with a button to undo it.
5. You moderate your own trips anyway: you can delete any comment under them.

The iPhone app records your path – in the background, with the screen off, and if you like even after the iPhone has closed it.

1. Start right from the trip list (“▶︎ Record”) or on the trip page.
2. On first start choose “Always allow” for location – without it recording stops as soon as you leave the app.
3. While recording, “Record” shows just the cockpit: duration, distance, mode of transport and four large buttons – take photo, change mode, upload, stop.
4. If you are driving, start before you set off and do not operate the app on the way – let a passenger or Siri do it.
5. With “Pause automatically when still”, recording halts when you stand still for a while and resumes as soon as you move.
6. If the app gets swiped away, the iPhone brings it back at the next change of place – switch on “Resume by itself after the app ends”. The minutes in between are missing.
7. Without a connection the points stay buffered and go out later on their own, even without opening the app.
8. On the lock screen and in the Dynamic Island you see distance and time, plus the buttons photo, change, upload and stop. The medium widget has the same buttons.
9. Reminders in case you forget to stop: after three and after six hours of recording – and when no new point has arrived for an hour. Both can be switched off separately.

When you stop, the app asks whether the pictures from exactly that period belong to the trip.

1. Stop the recording – below it, the photos from that period appear as a selection.
2. All are preselected; tap to deselect individual ones. “Later” is an equally valid answer.
3. Place and capture time come from your photo library, not from the file – so the place is missing less often than via the file dialog.
4. Photos you already added are recognised and not duplicated.

Start, stop and save a place from your wrist. While hiking or cycling the watch also measures your heart rate.

1. The watch app comes along with the iPhone app – a paired watch is enough.
2. It shows the trip, distance and time, and has three buttons: record, stop and “I am here”.
3. Recording still happens on the iPhone – its positioning is more accurate, and there is only ONE track instead of two.
4. Sport mode for hiking or cycling is a separate button. It measures your heart rate and saves the workout to Apple Health.
5. Your heart rate stays on your device: TripPhoto does not store it and does not transmit it anywhere.

Start recording by voice, the Action button or Control Center.

1. “Start the recording in TripPhoto” – Siri knows the phrase after installation.
2. The same commands are in the Shortcuts app and can be assigned to the Action button.
3. There are three: start recording, stop recording and “I am here”.
4. The command opens the app and lets it act – so everything you configured still applies.

Continue a trip from your iPhone on your Mac, find trips in iPhone search and see the running recording on your watch and in CarPlay.

1. Handoff: with a trip open in the app, a Mac or iPad on the same Apple ID offers it in the Dock or app switcher – one click opens it on tripphoto.app.
2. Spotlight: your trips appear in iPhone search. Only title and photo count are added, and the index stays on your device.
3. Control Center (iOS 18 and later): “Recording” and “I am here” controls – also for the lock screen and Action button.
4. Apple Watch and CarPlay show the running recording in compact form – without buttons, so nobody taps while on the move.
5. The app requires iOS 17 or later.
6. The app speaks your iPhone’s language: German on German devices, English everywhere else – including notifications, widget, watch and Siri.

Password, passkey or two-factor – in the app and on the website.

1. Create an account on the website or in the app; confirmation is by email.
2. Forgot your password? The link arrives by email and is valid for one hour.
3. A passkey replaces both password and code: sign in with Face ID or Touch ID, and the key stays on your device.
4. Alternatively two-factor with an authenticator app, plus backup codes for emergencies.
5. Under “Sign-in & security” you see your last sign-in with an approximate location. If someone signs in from another country, you get an email.

Take everything with you or delete everything – both free, any time, no questions asked.

1. In settings under “Your data” you download an archive: one page per trip with a route sketch, days and photos, plus GPX and all data as JSON. It opens without TripPhoto.
2. Single trips are available on their own too – as an archive or as GPX with real timestamps.
3. Error log: only switched on occasionally, without IP or content, deleted after 14 days – and switched off for you for good with one tick under “Your data”.
4. “Delete account” removes your account, trips, photos, recordings and sign-in data immediately and permanently. You get a confirmation by email.

Optional watermark (brand/name/initials) and fine-grained per-photo privacy.

1. Choose the watermark in settings – applies to new uploads.
2. Per photo: private, hide location publicly, or hide camera data publicly.
3. Images from private trips and private photos are protected: their addresses are valid only briefly and only for people allowed to see them.