Disclosure: I am building one of these apps (GlobePin), and I have tried to write the comparison honestly. Polarsteps is the right pick if you want narrative travel journaling. Visited is the right pick if you want a quick "places I've been" list. GlobePin covers the third use case, a personal travel record that puts the map and the flight log ahead of the journal.
The three approaches
Polarsteps: the travel journal
Polarsteps is the largest of the three, and its site says 22M+ travelers. You go on a trip and the app records your route via background location. You add photos and notes day by day, and the result is a sharable trip "story" with a printed photo book as an upsell.
Strengths: automatic route tracking that works offline, a polished story format, and a printed hardback travel book. Its listing also describes an AI itinerary planner, a transport planner for each leg, and Travel Buddies for tracking a trip with friends. It was at version 10.15.0 on October 5, 2026, with about 9,700 App Store ratings averaging 4.9. It is free to download. The optional Plus subscription adds 3D maps and Play mode, extra map styles, step stats and up to 10 Travel Buddies instead of 5. It is listed at $9.99 a month or $34.99 a year on the US App Store. The Polarsteps site shows 8.99 and 29.99 euros and says prices vary by region.
Limitations: tracking needs background-location permission (which affects battery and privacy). The app is trip-oriented, so it is less useful for "places I've been over my whole life." The social feed is opt-in but visibly present.
Visited: the country/city checklist
Visited is the lightest of the three to start with. Its model is a list of countries you have been to, shown as the percentage of the world map filled in. It also covers states, regions and cities, with 150+ lists to check off, regional maps for over 20 countries, and an itinerary builder. It was at version 4.5.10 on October 5, 2026, with about 13,900 ratings averaging 4.6. It is free to download, and several features are paid in-app purchases. Cities, regions, itineraries and ad removal are sold separately, and a Pro tier is listed at $59.99.
Strengths: low friction (mark a country as visited and you are done), and good for travel bragging stats ("I've been to 47 countries").
Limitations: it is a checklist more than a record of individual places (a restaurant or a landmark). It has no flight log, and syncing across devices needs an account on its servers.
GlobePin: the personal travel record
GlobePin is what I call the "Letterboxd model" for travel (Letterboxd is a film-logging app). It is a private record of every individual place you have been (a city, a landmark, a specific restaurant), every flight you have taken, and every destination you are planning. The map is the primary view, with a 3D globe that shows all your pins. Stats cover countries, continents, nights abroad, furthest point and total miles. The app also does trip planning (a day-by-day plan with saved spots, Discover Nearby from Apple Maps, and on devices with Apple Intelligence a Suggest a Plan feature that runs on the device). It also has photo postcards, a private journal, CSV import and export, and Travel Reels (a video of a trip or a year with an on-device soundtrack).
Strengths: it works for a complete life travel record, not just one trip. iCloud sync needs no separate account. There is no social feed and no algorithm. The map comes first.
Limitations: it is the newest and least proven of the three (version 1.2, with two ratings on the App Store as of October 4, 2026). Every feature is in the free version, which shows a small banner, a short ad before Year in Review, Map Collage and reel export, and a "Made with GlobePin" mark on shared cards. A one-time $14.99 Pro purchase removes all of that. There is no automatic location tracking, so you add pins manually. This is deliberate, because GlobePin is a record-keeping tool, not a tracking tool.
Quick comparison
| Feature | Polarsteps | Visited | GlobePin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Granularity | Per-trip | Per-country, some regions and cities paid | Per-place + per-flight |
| Data entry | Automatic GPS | Manual checklist | Manual pin / flight log |
| Map view | 2D, per-trip | 2D world map | 3D globe + 2D |
| Flight log | No | No | Yes (with stats) |
| Account required | Not confirmed | For sync | No (iCloud) |
| Social feed | Yes | Light | No |
| Cloud architecture | Polarsteps servers | Visited servers | User's own iCloud |
| Price (US App Store) | Free. Plus $9.99 a month or $34.99 a year | Free. Paid add-ons, Pro listed at $59.99 | Free with ads. Pro $14.99 once |
| Trip planning | AI itinerary and transport planner | Itinerary builder | Day-by-day plans, Discover Nearby, on-device Suggest a Plan |
| App Store ratings (Oct 5, 2026) | About 9,700, average 4.9 | About 13,900, average 4.6 | 2, average 5.0 |
| Best for | Trip storytelling | Country bragging | Lifetime record |
Privacy posture
The three apps differ most on privacy.
- Polarsteps keeps your trips on its own servers, including your recorded route. Its App Store privacy label lists Contact Info as linked to you. I could not confirm from its support pages whether an account is required.
- Visited says it does not track your location, and that signing up saves your data on its servers so you can reach it from any device. That is lower-stakes data than a GPS trail.
- GlobePin uses Apple's CloudKit (iCloud) for sync. Your travel data lives in your own iCloud, not on Purplelink's servers. There is no Purplelink account. The free version does show ads served by Google AdMob. The App Store privacy label lists identifiers and usage data under data used to track you, so read that label before you decide.
For most users this difference is invisible. However, for users in security-sensitive professions (journalists, lawyers, government, certain executives), your travel pattern is itself sensitive, so where the data lives matters.
How to choose
- Pick Polarsteps if you want to journal individual trips and are comfortable with background GPS and a Polarsteps account.
- Pick Visited if you mostly want a country/city checklist and quick percentage stats.
- Pick GlobePin if you want a complete lifetime travel record with both places and flights, prefer no separate account, and like the 3D globe view.
Status of each
All three are live on the App Store. Polarsteps and Visited have years of releases behind them. GlobePin 1.0 shipped on 3 September 2026, so it is the new one here and has none of their track record. It is free to download, with ads, so it costs nothing to try alongside whichever app you already use. For a wider field, including flight logs, planners and Apple's built-in options, see the best travel map apps for iPhone.