12 Best Travel Journal Apps in 2026
We tested every major travel journal app to find the best. Compare features, pricing, pros and cons—and find the perfect app for your next adventure.
Quick Comparison Table
Compare the top travel journal apps at a glance
| App | Rating | Offline | Collab | Maps | Free | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1TripMemoOur Pick | 4.8 | Group trips | ||||
| #2Polarsteps | 4.8 | Partial | Route tracking | |||
| #3Day One | 4.8 | Daily journaling | ||||
| #4Journey | 4.5 | Cross-platform users | ||||
| #5Travel Diaries | 4.6 | Print books | ||||
| #6FindPenguins | 4.7 | Partial | Budget travelers | |||
| #7Journi | 4.7 | Photo-first travelers | ||||
| #8Journo | 4.3 | Travel bloggers |
Detailed Reviews
In-depth look at each travel journal app—features, pricing, pros and cons
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TripMemo
Best Overall Travel Journal App
TripMemo turns trips into living books—each day becomes a page with photos, notes, and map pins. It's designed for memory preservation, not social media. Real-time collaboration makes it perfect for group trips, and it works fully offline.
Best for:
Pros
- Beautiful book-style layout (not a feed)
- Real-time collaboration for group trips
- Works fully offline
- Private by default
- Map with photo pins
- Vintage camera with 4 LUTs
- Free to use
Cons
- Newer app (smaller community)
- No automatic GPS tracking
- No print-to-book feature yet
What makes it unique:
The only travel journal app that structures trips like actual books with pages, making them easy to revisit years later.
Polarsteps
Best for Automatic Route Tracking
Polarsteps automatically tracks your travel route via GPS, creating a visual timeline of your journey. Great for travelers who want passive documentation without manual effort.
Best for:
Pros
- Automatic GPS route tracking
- Beautiful travel maps
- Large community (18M+ users)
- Print travel books
- Free to use
Cons
- Only one person can add content per trip
- No real-time collaboration
- Battery drain from GPS tracking
- Limited offline editing
- Public-first sharing model
What makes it unique:
The automatic route tracking is genuinely impressive—your path appears on a map without any effort.
Day One
Best Premium Journaling Experience
Day One is an award-winning general journaling app with excellent travel features. It captures metadata automatically (weather, location, music) and has a beautiful, polished interface.
Best for:
Pros
- Beautiful, award-winning design
- Automatic metadata (weather, location, music)
- End-to-end encryption
- Cross-platform sync
- 'On This Day' memories feature
- 150K+ five-star reviews
Cons
- Not travel-specific
- Premium features require subscription
- Android version less polished
- No collaboration features
- $50/year feels expensive for journaling
What makes it unique:
The 'On This Day' feature surfaces past entries beautifully, making it feel like a time capsule.
Journey
Best for Cross-Platform Users
Journey is a feature-rich journal app with strong cross-platform support. It offers templates, guided journaling prompts, and works across all devices.
Best for:
Pros
- Works on every platform
- Journaling templates and prompts
- One-time purchase option ($199)
- Rich text formatting
- Calendar and map views
- Cloud sync across devices
Cons
- Overwhelming for simple travel journaling
- Best features behind paywall
- Web app has limited storage
- Not travel-specific
- Steeper learning curve
What makes it unique:
The only major journal app with a lifetime purchase option—pay once, own forever.
Travel Diaries
Best for Printed Travel Books
Travel Diaries creates magazine-style digital journals that can be printed as physical books. The focus is on beautiful layouts and shareable online journals.
Best for:
Pros
- Beautiful magazine-style layouts
- Print as professional photo books
- Share as online blog
- PIN-protected sharing
- Good photo integration
Cons
- No free version
- Subscription required for access
- Limited offline functionality
- Restrictive photo templates
- Less intuitive than competitors
What makes it unique:
The print-to-book feature produces genuinely beautiful results—coffee table quality.
FindPenguins
Best Free Travel Tracker
FindPenguins automatically tracks your trips and lets you create travel journals with photos and notes. The community features let you explore other travelers' journeys.
Best for:
Pros
- Completely free core features
- Automatic trip tracking
- Large traveler community
- 3D flyover videos
- Print photo books
- Flight detection
Cons
- Interface feels dated
- Limited customization
- No real-time collaboration
- Community focus may not suit everyone
- Ads in free version
What makes it unique:
The 3D flyover video feature is genuinely fun—creates shareable videos of your route.
Journi
Best for Quick Photo Books
Journi (not to be confused with Journey) focuses on turning your photos into beautiful timelines and photo books automatically. AI sorts your photos by location.
Best for:
Pros
- AI auto-sorts photos by location
- Quick photo book creation
- Shared albums with friends
- Weather and flight info
- Cross-device sync
Cons
- Premium required for best features
- Limited text journaling
- 1TB storage limit on premium
- Photo-focused, less for writers
- Can feel impersonal
What makes it unique:
The AI-powered auto-sorting is genuinely useful—uploads organize themselves.
Journo
Best for Collaborative Travel Blogs
Journo turns your travels into shareable blogs with custom maps. You get your own travel website and can collaborate with travel companions.
Best for:
Pros
- Creates shareable travel website
- Collaboration with companions
- Custom trip maps
- Print as coffee table book
- Offline mode
- Sketching feature
Cons
- iOS only (no Android)
- Subscription required
- Smaller user base
- No web version
- Learning curve for features
What makes it unique:
You get an actual travel website to share—not just a link to an app.
Penzu
Best for Private Journaling
Penzu is a privacy-focused journal with military-grade encryption. It's a general journaling app that works well for travel notes and reflections.
Best for:
Pros
- Military-grade 256-bit encryption
- Lock journals with passwords
- Clean, distraction-free interface
- Time Capsule feature
- PDF export
Cons
- Not travel-specific
- Limited photo features
- No offline mode
- No map integration
- Dated interface design
What makes it unique:
The Time Capsule feature emails entries to your future self—great for trip reflections.
Notion
Best for Power Users
Notion isn't a travel journal app—it's an everything app. But with templates and customization, power users can build sophisticated travel journals.
Best for:
Pros
- Infinitely customizable
- Combine planning and journaling
- Embed maps, videos, links
- Templates for everything
- Real-time collaboration
- Works offline
Cons
- Requires setup and templates
- Not designed for travel
- No automatic features
- Can be overwhelming
- Learning curve
What makes it unique:
You can build literally anything—but you have to build it yourself.
Apple Journal
Best Free Option for iPhone Users
Apple's built-in Journal app uses on-device intelligence to suggest moments worth capturing. It's simple, private, and free for all iPhone users.
Best for:
Pros
- Completely free
- Built into iOS
- On-device AI suggestions
- End-to-end encrypted
- Simple, clean interface
- Integrates with Photos, Music, Workouts
Cons
- iPhone only
- Very basic features
- No web access
- Limited sharing options
- No map visualization
- No collaboration
What makes it unique:
The AI suggestions are surprisingly useful—prompts based on photos and locations you visited.
Diarium
Best One-Time Purchase Journal
Diarium is a flexible journal app with a one-time purchase model. It syncs via your own cloud storage and adapts to different journaling styles.
Best for:
Pros
- One-time purchase ($9.99)
- Use your own cloud storage
- Adapts to any journaling style
- Mood tracking
- Cross-platform
- No subscription
Cons
- Pay per platform
- Not travel-specific
- Basic map features
- No collaboration
- Interface less polished
What makes it unique:
Uses your own cloud storage (Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud)—you own your data completely.
How to Choose a Travel Journal App
Ask yourself these questions to find your perfect match
Do you travel with others?
If you travel with friends, family, or a partner, choose an app with collaboration features. TripMemo and Journo let multiple people add to the same trip.
Do you want automatic tracking?
If you prefer passive documentation, Polarsteps automatically tracks your route via GPS. If you want intentional journaling, TripMemo and Day One are better fits.
How important is offline access?
If you travel to remote areas, you need full offline mode. TripMemo works completely offline. Many apps have limited offline features.
Do you want to print photo books?
If you want physical keepsakes, Travel Diaries and Journi specialize in creating printable books. Polarsteps also offers this feature.
What's your budget?
If you want free, TripMemo, Polarsteps, and Apple Journal offer full features at no cost. Day One and Journey require subscriptions for best features.
Are you an Apple or Android user?
Some apps favor Apple (Day One, Journo). TripMemo, Polarsteps, and Journey work equally well on both platforms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about travel journal apps
What is the best travel journal app?
What is the best free travel journal app?
What is the best travel journal app for iPhone?
What is the best travel journal app for Android?
What is the best way to record your travels?
What's the difference between a travel journal and diary?
How do I keep track of where I've traveled?
Are travel journal apps worth it?
Can I use a travel journal app offline?
What should I include in a travel journal?
The Bottom Line
After testing all 12 apps, TripMemo stands out for travelers who want to create meaningful, revisitable memories. Its book-style layout, real-time collaboration, and offline mode make it perfect for real trips.
That said, Polarsteps is excellent if you want automatic route tracking, Day One if you want premium journaling features, and Apple Journal if you just want something simple and free.
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