The world travel map is the simplest way to see every trip you've ever taken in one picture. Click a country to mark it visited. Click a US state to mark that one too. Watch your percentage of the world and your continent count grow with every click. No account, no upload, no sign-in wall — just a map and your memories, saved quietly in your own browser.
What is My Travel Maps?
It's a full-screen, interactive world map combined with a US states map in a single tool. You can flip between the two views using the tabs above the map, but both views share one visited list. Mark Italy on the world view; mark Oregon on the US view; both count toward the same running travel tally.
Under the hood, the countries are drawn from Natural Earth's 110-metre boundaries and the states from the US Census Bureau's TIGER dataset. The cream basemap is CartoDB Voyager, built on OpenStreetMap. All of your selections live in your browser's local storage under the key mtm_state — so they persist through browser restarts, but never leave your device.
Who uses My Travel Maps?
- Frequent international travelers who also road-trip the US and want a single dashboard for both kinds of trips.
- Families recapping the summer — parents and kids can take turns marking everywhere they went together.
- Flight attendants, pilots, and crew who spend their careers landing in new cities and want a visual of the last ten years.
- Digital nomads and remote workers who want to look back at where they worked from each year, without spreadsheets.
- Anyone with a scratch map at home who wants a digital version they can share and update.
How to create your travel map
The interface is designed so that you never have to read instructions. But here's the full flow if you want to know every corner of it:
- Mode toggle (top-right): decides what clicking a country does. “Visited” marks it green. “Want to visit” marks it sage. Clicking the same country again removes the mark.
- Clear all (top-right, red): wipes every country and state from both your visited list and wish list. You'll be asked to confirm.
- View tabs (top): switch between the world and US states views without losing any of your selections.
- Stats bar (bottom): shows countries visited, percentage of the world, continents touched, US states, and wish-list count — all in real time.
What you can do with your travel map
People use the world travel map for different reasons, and we've deliberately left it flexible enough to work for all of them:
- Travel journal: a living record of where you've been.
- Bucket list: mark the places you want to go before the ones you've been.
- Trip planning: see gaps on your map and pick the next destination to fill them.
- Family recap: a shared visual of every family trip, for the mantel or the Christmas card.
- Personal milestones: mark the country where you got married, studied abroad, or met someone important.
Five real examples from our users
1. The backpacker catching up
Someone who's backpacked through 40 countries over six years but never kept a list. Ten minutes on the world map and they suddenly have a colored-in Europe, most of Southeast Asia, and a precise number to put on their travel CV: “43 countries, 5 continents.”
2. The family summer recap
A family returns from a summer road trip across the western US, marks California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado on the states map, screenshots it, and prints it as a keepsake for the kids' bedroom wall.
3. The flight attendant snapshot
A long-haul flight attendant with 15 years on international routes marks every country she's laid over in, then flips to US states to catch the domestic legs. The result is a birds-eye view of a career spent in airports.
4. The couple planning a year off
A couple plotting a one-year sabbatical uses “Want to visit” mode to highlight 20 candidate countries in pale sage. As they book tickets, they flip each one from wish list to green visited — a satisfying progress bar for the trip.
5. The yearly review
A remote worker opens the map every December to mark the new countries and states they spent time in that year. Comparing last year's map to this year's makes an otherwise abstract lifestyle feel tangible.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I create a map of countries I've visited?
Click the “Visited” mode in the top-right corner, then click any country on the map to mark it. Your selections save automatically in your browser — no account needed. Switch to “Want to visit” mode to mark places on your bucket list in a different color. You can map all 195 countries and 50 US states.
How many countries has the average person visited?
The average American has visited 3 to 4 foreign countries in their lifetime, while the average European has visited 9 to 10. Frequent travelers who actively track their trips tend to visit 2 to 3 times more countries than people who don't track, because tracking motivates planning. The most-traveled person alive, Don Parrish, has visited all 193 UN member states.
Does a layover count as visiting a country?
This is the most-debated question in the travel community. The strictest rule (used by the Travelers' Century Club) is that you must set foot on land — a transit through an airport doesn't count. A more relaxed rule counts any overnight stay. The most common personal rule is “you must leave the airport.” My Travel Maps doesn't enforce a definition; you choose your own rule and map accordingly.
Can I share my travel map with friends?
Yes. Click the Share button below your map to get a shareable link or image. You can post it on social media, send it in a message, or embed it on a personal blog. Your map data is encoded in the URL, so no account is needed on either side.
Do I need to create an account?
No. My Travel Maps works entirely in your browser — your selections are saved in local storage on your device. No signup, no email required, no data collected. If you clear your browser data, your map resets, so save a screenshot or share link if you want a backup.
How do I add US states to my map?
Use the view switcher above the map to toggle between World and US States view. You can track both independently — countries on the world map and states on the US map — and your progress in each view is saved separately.
What's the difference between “visited” and “want to visit”?
Visited marks places you've actually been to, shown in one color. Want to visit marks your bucket list in a different color. You can toggle between the two modes at any time, and a country can only be in one category at a time. This lets you see your travel history and your future plans on the same map.
Can I export my travel map as an image?
Yes. Click the Download button to save your map as a PNG image. The download captures the full map with all your selections, perfect for sharing on social media, adding to a travel blog, or printing to hang on your wall.
Is my travel data private?
Yes. All your data is stored locally in your browser's local storage. Nothing is sent to our servers. We don't track which countries you click, we don't show ads based on your selections, and we don't share your data with anyone. If you share your map link, only the people you send it to can see it.
How do I count countries I've visited for a new traveler?
Start with the obvious ones — your home country and any country where you've spent at least one night. Don't overthink connections or brief visits; pick one personal rule and stick with it. Many travelers use the “left the airport” rule as a minimum. The goal isn't to maximize the count, it's to visualize your journey, so be consistent with your own definition.