How it works

1. Choose your map

There are three levels. The world map counts countries. The Canada map counts provinces and territories. The Canadian cities map counts 45 major cities. Each keeps its own progress, so you can use one or all three. More countries are planned, and they are labelled “Coming soon” on the maps page until they work fully.

2. Select the places you’ve visited

You can mark a place in three ways, and they all do the same thing:

• Tap or click it on the map. Small places get a round marker so they are easy to hit, and the map zooms with the plus button, a pinch, or Ctrl and the scroll wheel.
• Tick it in the list. The list is grouped by continent or region and has a search box that understands other names, so “Holland” finds the Netherlands and “PEI” finds Prince Edward Island.
• Use the keyboard. Tab to the map, move between places with the arrow keys, and press Space to mark one.

Switch the map to Want to go to build a bucket list. Those places are drawn with stripes, so they are never confused with places you have been. Undo steps back one change at a time, and Start over asks before it clears anything.

As you mark places, the panel shows your count, your percentage and a breakdown by continent or region. It also shows your achievements. Each achievement states its rule, such as “Mark at least one province or territory in each of Canada’s five regions”, so you can see exactly why you have it or what is left.

3. Personalize your design

Choose Design my poster to open the poster studio with your places already in it. Pick one of four designs, then change what you like:

• the title, an optional subtitle, your name or nickname, dates and a short caption,
• the colour used for the places you have explored, from a set chosen to suit each design,
• the title lettering: serif, sans-serif or handwritten,
• whether to show map labels, the list of places, your bucket list, and an achievement seal you have earned.

The preview updates as you type, and it is drawn by the same code that makes the file, so what you see is what you download.

4. Download and share

• PNG for sharing: a 4:5 post, a 9:16 story or a 2:3 pin, at standard size or twice the detail.
• PDF for print: 8 × 10 in, 18 × 24 in, 24 × 18 in or A3. It is a vector file, so it also prints sharp at other sizes with the same proportions.
• Share image hands the picture to your phone’s share sheet where the browser supports that, and saves it otherwise.
• Share and Challenge a friend on the map page give you a link. A friend who opens a challenge link marks their own map and then sees both side by side.

Where your map is kept

Your marks and poster settings are saved in your browser’s storage on the device you are using. There is no account and no copy on a server. The map page shows “Saved on this device” when a save has worked, and warns you if your browser is blocking storage.

A share link works differently from most: the places you marked are written into the link itself, after the “#”. Browsers do not send that part of a link to a web server, so we never receive it. It also means there is no stored copy for us to delete. If you want to stop sharing a map, stop passing the link around.

To move your map to another phone or computer, open Share, send yourself the link, and open it on the other device.

What the numbers mean

Every percentage on WorldTripMap is a count of places divided by the number of places on that map. It is never a share of land area, population or things to see. The data and methods page lists the counting rules and the sources for each map.

Choose a map