How to Make a Map of Places You’ve Visited

Before you choose a tool, decide what the map is for. “Places I’ve visited” can mean three different maps.

Fill-in, pin or route?

A fill-in map is the one people usually mean. It answers “how many countries have you been to?” at a glance, and it prints well. Its known flaw is that one afternoon in Vancouver colours all of Canada. If that bothers you, go one level down: a map of provinces or states is far more honest about a big country than a single block of colour. The Canada map here goes one level further: you tick the cities, parks and landmarks you have been to inside each province, and a province you know well is drawn in a deeper colour than one you only passed through.

Make a fill-in map in four steps

These steps use WorldTripMap, which is free and needs no account. The same order works with any fill-in map maker.

1. Choose the level. Use the world map for countries, the Canada map for provinces and territories, or the Canadian cities map for cities. You can keep all three; each has its own progress.
2. Mark where you have been. Tap or click a place on the map. On a phone, pinch to zoom, or use the list under the map: searching “Lux” is faster than finding Luxembourg with a fingertip.
3. Add the places you want to go. Switch the map to Want to go and mark your bucket list. It shows as a striped fill so the two never blur together.
4. Make it a poster or share it. Choose Design my poster, pick one of four designs, add a title, and download a PNG for sharing or a PDF for print. Sizes, paper and bleed are covered in how to print a travel map poster.

Your map saves itself in your browser as you go. To keep a backup or move it to another device, open Share and send yourself the link, which contains the map.

Decide what “visited” means first

You will mark places faster, and trust the result more, if you settle the rule before you start. Some people count a country once they have left the airport. Some want an overnight stay. There is no official answer, so choose one rule and apply it everywhere. What counts as visiting a country sets out the common rules, and how many countries there are explains why different apps give different totals.

When a pin map or route map is the better choice

• You want to remember specific sights. A pin map is right. Google’s My Maps lets you drop markers and attach notes and photos to each.
• You are documenting one trip. A route map tells that story better: a line from stop to stop, in order.
• You want something for the wall that you update by hand. A scratch-off map or a cork board with pins does the job with no screen involved.

Many travellers keep two: a fill-in map for the big picture, and a pin or route map for trips they want to remember in detail.

Tips that save time later

• Start with the list, not the map. Go continent by continent and tick as you read. You will remember places you would have missed. The countries checklist has all 195 on one page.
• Check the small ones. City states and islands are easy to forget: Monaco, the Vatican, Singapore, Malta, the Caribbean.
• Keep territories separate. Puerto Rico, Greenland and Hong Kong are worth marking, but they are not on the list of 195 countries. A good map counts them on their own line.
• Save the link. A share link is a complete copy of your map. Email it to yourself once in a while.

Where the map shapes come from

WorldTripMap draws its boundaries from Natural Earth, a public-domain dataset maintained by volunteer cartographers, and projects them with projections chosen for each map rather than the stretched Mercator view of most web maps. The details are on the data and methods page.