ShutterBeeI’ve been lucky enough to travel to about 100 countries, including 65 with my wife. I say “about” because that number is something of an approximation. What I know for sure is that I’ve been to a ton of places, many more than once (I love Hawaii, for example, which I last visited in September), and that I’ve learned a ton about life and travel from the people living in all of them. In the best way possible, it’s a lot to keep track of.

ShutterBee is a free iPhone app designed to help travelers like me “share [my] travel story with the world.” It brings many of the best features of other travel tools (like personalized travel maps, photo-sharing/feeds, and large destination-focused discussion boards) into one place. Namely:

ShutterBee travel map (but not mine!)
ShutterBee travel map (but not mine!)

1. Personalized travel maps
No more struggling to remember all your travels, or how many countries you’ve been to (a lot of people care more about that than me). ShutterBee’s “My travel map” function lets you keep a running, visual tally of all your destinations (“countries,” “cities” and “places”) at your fingertips. Any time you take a trip, you can update your map with a few taps, and in between, you can just as easily add destinations you want to visit to your “Bucket List.” It’s a beautiful, simple version of a tool that every traveler—visiting their first or (approximately) 101st country—can use. If I’d had ShutterBee 30-years ago, I’d probably have a much easier time remembering my country number today!

ShutterBee's photo feed
ShutterBee’s photo feed

2. Photo-sharing/feeds
After a trip, ShutterBee provides a great new platform for your travel photos. It’s as easy to use as Instagram (this portion of ShutterBee actually sort of looks like Instagram), with a more travel-focused community of people to view and like your photos—and to fill your feed with photos from their own travels. You can follow, like and more, and with the “Explore” function, you can meet new travelers to engage with and be inspired by. You can even search for photos of specific destinations using a number of different filters.

ShutterBee discussion boards: full of tips
ShutterBee discussion boards: full of tips

3. Large destination-focused discussion boards
Possibly the best feature of all. Considering how many travelers are carrying ShutterBee in their pockets, there’s a lot of travel wisdom/experience among the ShutterBee user base. Fortunately, there’s a place to share it, in the “Discussions” tab. If you’re heading to a new place, you can ask for travel help—on subjects like where to stay and how to get into the city from the airport—and other users will reply with tips (see screenshot above). You can also post your own travel stories and, if you like, engage with other travel-minded people from the around the world on a regular basis.

 

It’s a clever tool, to say the least, and it’s free. To download (or read more about) ShutterBee, visit this page. If you use it, let me know what you think—and how many countries you’ve been to!

This post was written in partnership with ShutterBee.

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