Use This Free App to Create a Shareable Travel Journal With Minimal Effort

When you’re finally on your long-awaited (and likely previously cancelled) holiday, you may face a conundrum. On the one hand, you want to document your trip — both for yourself, and so your friends and family can see and enjoy your travels.

But on the other hand, while keeping a travel journal or blog seems like a good idea before you arrive at your destination, when you’re actually there in the moment, no part of you wants to stop to take down the names of the people, places, and attractions you’ve just encountered. Now there’s a new app that does most of that work for you. Here’s what to know.

How to make a travel journal using an app

The app is called Hoptale, and it utilises photo metadata to pull information about a destination, and uses it to put together a travel journal. In addition to photos and facts, you can document other aspects of your trip, including maps of the places you visited, and your itinerary — which, the company says, can be done in as few as 10 minutes.

Hoptale was designed to be used in three different ways:

1. Creating a travel journal with minimal effortThis is the part described above, where metadata from your photos is used sketch out the basic components of a travel journal (the names of towns, landmarks you’ve visited, etc), leaving it up to you to add your own details and commentary.
2. Sharing your travel journal and itineraryNot only will you have the option of publicly sharing your trip (like you would with a traditional travel blog), but you can also send a link to your journal to friends and family so they can see your photos and what you’ve been up to.
3. Using it as a trip planning toolWhen you’re ready to plan your next trip, you can check out the Explore feed of the app to find amazing trips others have taken and get real, user-generated photos and itineraries.

The app is free to download and use, and according to a spokesperson for Hoptale, “as of now, there are no plans to charge users for use of the full featured app.”