I've tried a lot of travel tracking apps. Most of them fall into one of two categories: the social-network kind that wants you to check in for other people's benefit, and the minimal kind that's basically a glorified spreadsheet. Neither is what I was looking for.
What I wanted was something in between: a complete personal travel record. Not just a list of countries visited, but a real map. Every city. Every flight. Every place I'd been and where I wanted to go next. A record I'd actually enjoy looking at.
GlobePin started as that scratch — and as I built it, I kept running into the same gaps in the existing options. Here's what we did differently.
The complete flight record
Most travel apps track destinations, not journeys. You mark a country as visited and move on. But the journey matters. The eleven-hour flight to Tokyo, the connection through Heathrow, the short hop from Barcelona to Madrid — those are part of the travel story.
GlobePin tracks every flight: departure airport, arrival airport, date, distance, duration. That data feeds into stats that actually mean something — total miles flown, flight count by year, longest route, most visited airports. For frequent travelers, this record becomes genuinely interesting over time.
A 3D globe that earns its place
Map apps use flat projections. Most travel trackers do too. The problem is that a flat map distorts how the world actually looks, and it makes long-haul routes look strange — a direct flight from New York to Tokyo crossing the Pacific isn't a straight line on a Mercator projection.
GlobePin has a 3D globe view because it shows routes the way they actually exist on the earth's surface. It's not a gimmick — it changes how you see your own travel history. Watching great circle routes arc across the sphere gives context that a flat map can't.
Travel goals that aren't checklists
Most travel goal features are just checklist apps in disguise. Check off countries. Unlock badges. It's gamification for gamification's sake.
GlobePin's goals work differently. You set goals like "visit every continent" or "fly 50,000 miles" or "spend time in 10 new countries this year" — and your existing travel data fills in progress automatically. Goals connect to history. The app knows you've already been to four continents and shows you what's left. No manual updating.
Anniversary reminders
This one's small but I haven't seen it anywhere else. GlobePin can remind you when an anniversary of a trip is coming up — "One year ago today, you arrived in Kyoto." It's the kind of feature that turns a data app into something that feels personal.
Shareable postcards without the social network
Travel apps that have sharing built in usually want you to share inside the app — to followers, to friends, as part of their retention loop. I didn't want that model.
GlobePin generates shareable travel postcards — a single image combining your map, your stats, and a personal note — that you export and share wherever you want. iMessage, Instagram, email, wherever. The app isn't the destination. It's a tool.
iCloud sync, not a proprietary account
Your travel data should be yours. GlobePin syncs across devices using iCloud via CloudKit — Apple's sync infrastructure that you're already paying for as an iPhone owner. No account, no subscription for sync, no data stored on Purplelink's servers.
That also means if GlobePin ever went away, your data would still be in iCloud. That's the kind of guarantee most apps can't make.
GlobePin is coming to the App Store in 2026. If you're the kind of traveler who wants a real record of everywhere you've been — join the waitlist.