Questions, answered.

Yes. Explo is free to download and use, and it has no ads.

Not yet. Explo is built for iPhone first.

No. Explo works fully without one and your map stays on your phone. An account (Sign in with Apple or Google) only adds backup and sync between devices. See what is saved if you sign in.

Tap a country on the Map tab, or search for it in Explore, and choose Been there, Want to go or I lived here. You can also record how many times you have been.

The 197 sovereign countries: the 193 UN member states plus Vatican City, Palestine, Kosovo and Taiwan. Territories and tiny islands are on the map and you can mark them, but they don’t count toward your percentage.

Explo comes in 11 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Czech. It follows your iPhone’s language, and you can pick another one under Passport, the account icon, Language. The home page of this website has the same 11 languages.

Inside 25 countries you can mark regions as well: US states, Canadian provinces, Czech regions, Japanese prefectures and so on. Open the country’s page and use the card that lists its states, provinces or regions. Marking a region also marks its country as visited.

Yes. Under Passport, the account icon, choose Fill the map from my photos. Explo reads the place and date saved with each photo, on your phone, and lists the countries it found. You choose which ones go on your map.

Nothing is uploaded and no photo is copied. Only photos that have a location saved can add a place, and that is a Camera setting.

Open Share your map on the Passport tab and pick a picture: Map, Year, Rank or Milestone. Save it to Photos, post it to Instagram Stories or send it in Messages. Each picture carries a small QR code to explo.world.

The Rank picture (“You’ve seen more than 94% of Explo users”, with your own number) needs an account and shows only when it is true for you: enough other people on Explo, and more countries than at least half of them.

Yes. Use Compare with a friend in the app to send a link. Your friend opens it on explo.world and sees your countries, and in the app it is laid over their own map.

The link itself carries your list of visited countries, so anyone you send it to can see them. Nothing is stored on a server.

Yes. Add a trip for somewhere you are going or have been: where, when and for how long. For trips ahead, each country gets a prep card with the entry rule for your passport, the best months, plug type, currency and public holidays on your dates. Turn on Travel reminders in your account and Explo reminds you a week before you go.

Yes. Explo has a Home Screen and Lock Screen widget that shows how many countries you have visited, with your map on the Home Screen sizes. Add it the usual way: press and hold the Home Screen, tap + and choose Explo.

Yes. Open Map settings at the top right of the Map tab to choose a map style (Night, Cobalt or Ocean) and whether visited countries are cream or lime.

From the open Passport Index dataset by Ilya Ilyankou (MIT licence), which lists the entry rule for every passport and destination. Its author last updated the data in January 2025, so some rules have changed since.

Entry rules change often, so treat Explo as a starting point and check the official government source before you book.

Choose your passport on the visa-free card in the Explore tab. Explo then shows the entry rule for that passport on every country page and counts how many countries it opens up visa-free.

Visa-free: you can enter without applying first, usually for a limited number of days. Visa on arrival: you get the visa at the border. eTA: an electronic travel authorisation you apply for online before you fly. e-Visa: a visa you apply for online. Visa required: you need a visa before you travel. No admission: entry is not allowed for travellers with that passport.

Our guide to the different rules goes into more detail.

Yes. The visa checker on this website uses the same data: pick a passport and a country.

Yes. Sign up at explo.world/alerts/ with your email address, choose your passport and, if you like, only the countries you care about. We ask you to confirm your address first, and every email has an unsubscribe link.

We write only when a rule for your passport has actually changed, and at most once a day. The alerts do not use the data in the app. Every hour we read the “Visa requirements for … citizens” pages on Wikipedia, which cite the official source for each country, and compare each with the last time we looked. A difference is announced only after it has stood unchanged for a week, so a mistaken or joke edit usually never reaches you. Wikipedia is not an official source, so always confirm with the government site before you travel.

Yes. Country pages and trips show the UK Foreign Office’s travel advice for that country, from no warnings to avoid all travel. It is written for British travellers, so entry rules for other passports can differ, and the text of an update is in English.

Travel advice alerts are optional. Turn them on in your account and Explo sends a notification when the warning is raised for a country on your want-to-go list or in a trip, or when the entry requirements change for a trip. The checks run on your phone when the app opens and when iOS allows it in the background, usually about once a day. There is no Explo server watching for you.

Only if you sign in. We store your account ID and the email address and name Apple or Google shares with us (Apple lets you hide your email), plus the countries you marked (visited, want to go, lived), your visit counts, the regions you ticked, your trips, your private notes and when each last changed. Your photos never leave your phone.

It is kept in a database run for us by Supabase, where each person’s rows can only be read and changed by their own account. We use it for backup and sync, nothing else. The privacy policy has the detail.

Yes. Open explo.world/my-map/ and sign in with Google, the same account you use in the app. You see the map you have synced from your phone.

Sign in with the same Apple or Google account on the new phone and your passport comes back. Without an account your map lives on the phone only and can’t be moved. The support page has the steps.

Mostly. Your map, the country guides, entry rules and best months are built into the app, so they work without a connection, and changes sync when you are back online. Weather, public holidays and travel advice need the internet.

Open Passport, tap the account icon and choose Delete account. Your account and everything saved for it (your places, regions, trips, notes and public page) is removed straight away. Data kept on your phone is removed when you delete the app.

Prefer to ask us? Email support@explo.world from the address on your account and we’ll delete it for you.

Yes, if you want one. Under Passport, the account icon, Public page, pick a name and press Publish to get a link like explo.world/@yourname for your social profile. It is off until you publish, and you can turn it off at any time.

Anyone with the link sees your chosen name and the countries you marked as visited. Your want-to-go list and past trips (by month and year) show only if you switch them on. It never shows exact dates, upcoming trips, notes, where you live or your email address. Search engines are asked not to index these pages. To report a page, use the link at the bottom of it or email us.

There are no ads and no ad or tracking SDKs, and we don’t sell or share personal data. Explo does count, anonymously, which screens, features and countries get used and which passport is chosen, so we can improve it. That never includes your exact location, trip dates, notes, photos, name or email, and it is not linked to you or your account. You can switch it off under Passport, the account icon, Usage data. The privacy policy has the detail.

No. Explo only looks at your location if you turn on arrival notifications, and then it works out the country on your phone, using a map built into the app. Your location is never sent anywhere, and Explo keeps no history, only the last country it saw.

None until you turn them on in your account. There are three optional kinds: arrival notifications when you land in a new country, travel reminders (a place on your want-to-go list at its best, a week before a trip, and your map at the end of the year) and travel advice alerts.

They are all created on your phone. They don’t come from a server, and Explo does not collect a push token.

Only you, unless you choose otherwise. If you never sign in, your map never leaves your phone. If you sign in, only your own account can read the saved copy. Others see part of it only if you publish a public page, send a compare link or share a picture.

No. explo.world sets no cookies. It counts page views anonymously, without cookies or IP-based location and honouring Do Not Track, and it remembers your chosen language in your browser’s own storage, which stays on your device. Our web host, GoDaddy, may log visits and measure page performance as part of running the site.

Email support@explo.world. A person will answer. It helps to include your iPhone model, your iOS version and, if it is about a country, which one.

The support page covers the common ones: sync problems, arrival notifications that don’t show up, weather or holidays that look wrong and saving pictures.

Tell us which country and which passport it is about, and what the official source says, and we will look into it. The visa data is dated (see where the rules come from), so always check the official source before you travel.

Write to support@explo.world. The changelog and roadmap shows what is built and what is planned.