Search "bucket list app" and you get three products wearing the same label.

There are life-goal apps, where travel is one category next to learning guitar and running a marathon. There are travel wishlists on a map (part of what makes a great travel tracker app), where the point is the destinations you have not reached yet. And there are local experience finders, which sell you tickets to things happening in your city this weekend.

They have almost nothing in common. Picking the wrong kind is the most common reason these apps get deleted in week one, so this list is grouped by type before it is ranked.

Quick comparison

Checked September 2026 on the US App Store. Pricing varies by region.

Choose between a list and a map

Is your bucket list a list, or a map?

If your unfinished travel lives as text — Patagonia, Japan in cherry blossom season, the Trans-Siberian — a goal-list app will suit you, and the travel category will sit alongside everything else you want to do.

If it lives geographically — you want to see the gaps on a world map and fill them in — you want a travel map with a wishlist layer, and a to-do app will feel like the wrong shape immediately.

The second group has an advantage worth stating plainly: the same map holds both halves. Where you have been and where you want to go stop being separate systems, and the list stays honest because you can see it shrinking.

Travel maps with a wishlist layer

1. Pin Traveler

Primarily a record of where you have been — cities, countries and U.S. states pinned onto a permanent map — with saved locations available on premium for destinations you are planning.

The reason it belongs on this list is the pairing. Most bucket-list apps show you what is missing without context; a travel map shows the wishlist against the map you have already built, which is a more motivating picture and a more realistic one. Twelve unreached countries look different next to the forty you have visited than they do as a bare list.

Free tier: unlimited pins for cities, countries and states, the colour-coded map and travel statistics. Premium adds saved locations, photo uploads and custom pin styles, monthly, yearly or one-time via Pin Traveler Premium or directly in the Pin Traveler app.

Be clear about the trade: the bucket list here is a saved-locations layer on a tracker, not a structured goal system. There are no checklists to complete, no shared lists with a partner, no progress bars against a defined set. If the ritual of building and ticking a formal list is the pleasure, one of the goal apps below will serve you better — and several people run one of each quite happily.

Rating: 4.73 from 8,453 ratings.

2. Visited

The most structured version of a travel wishlist. Every one of its 150-plus categories can be marked want-to-visit as well as visited, across countries, U.S. states, regional maps for 20+ countries, heritage sites and parks.

If you want your bucket list pre-populated with defined sets rather than assembled by hand, nothing else here comes close. We compared how it stacks up against a lifetime destination map in our Pin Traveler vs Visited comparison. The cost is the same one it always has: a lot of interface to move through.

Rating: 4.65 from 13,762 ratings.

3. Skratch

Countries you have visited plus countries you want to, in a scratch-map presentation with destination inspiration alongside. Lighter than Visited, prettier than most, country-level rather than granular.

Rating: 4.6 from 2,106 ratings.

Goal-list apps

4. The Bucket List App

The most polished dedicated bucket-list product here. Create lists, check items off, track trips, collect passport-style stamps, and share lists with family or friends. It carries a large following through the Bucket List Family audience.

Travel is a strong category within it rather than the whole product, which is exactly right if your list mixes destinations with everything else you intend to do.

Rating: 4.93 from 706 ratings — the highest score in this comparison.

5. iBucket

Built around shared lists: goals you keep with a partner, friends or family, with photos and stories attached, a day-by-day trip planner, and a map layer for countries and regions.

The shared dimension is the differentiator. If your bucket list is a joint project, this is the model that fits, and it is not something the map-first apps do.

Rating: 4.55 from 82 ratings — a small base, so read recent reviews before committing.

Travel planners and location savers

6. Wanderlog

A trip planner. You collect ideas, build itineraries, map them out day by day, and it is very good at that, with a generous free tier. For travellers who also want narrative reflections or daily trip logs alongside planning, see our roundup of the best travel journal apps in 2026.

It is not a bucket list, though: the structure assumes a trip you are actively planning, not a decade of vague intentions. Ideas need a trip to live in.

7. Mapstr

Saves individual spots — restaurants, bars, viewpoints — with tags and recommendations from people you follow. Excellent for "somewhere I want to eat in Lisbon", wrong for "someday I want to see Patagonia".

Rating: 4.73 from 2,571 ratings.

8. BucketListers

Worth including precisely because the name misleads. This is an experience-discovery product: curated local events, pop-ups and festivals in your city, with tickets bookable in the app.

Genuinely good at what it does. It has nothing to do with tracking a personal bucket list, and people arriving from that search are usually surprised.

Rating: 4.65 from 3,152 ratings.

9. Google Maps lists

The default nobody mentions. Starring destinations and building saved lists in Google Maps costs nothing and syncs everywhere.

It works until the list gets long, at which point there is no progress view, no separation between "want to go" and "been", and no sense of the whole. Fine as a holding pen, weak as a system.

Which bucket list app fits your needs

• Wishlist on the same map as your travel history — Pin Traveler

• Pre-built sets to work through — Visited

• A proper goal list where travel is one part — The Bucket List App

• A shared list with a partner or family — iBucket

• A country wishlist that looks good — Skratch

• Planning a specific trip — Wanderlog

• Venues to try inside a city — Mapstr

• Things to do near you this weekend — BucketListers

Frequently asked questions

What is the best travel bucket list app?

It depends on whether your list is geographic or textual. For a wishlist that sits on the same map as the travel you have already done, Pin Traveler's saved locations work alongside its city, country and state tracking. For a structured goal list with checkable items, The Bucket List App is the most polished dedicated option, and Visited offers the most pre-built sets to work through.

Is there a free bucket list app?

Google Maps lists cost nothing and sync everywhere, though they offer no progress tracking. Most dedicated apps run a free tier with paid upgrades. Pin Traveler's free tier covers unlimited pins for where you have been, with saved locations on premium.

What's the difference between a bucket list app and a travel tracker?

A bucket list records intentions; a tracker records history. See our comprehensive guide on what a travel tracker app is and does for the full breakdown. The overlap is useful — seeing unreached destinations against the map you have already filled in is more motivating than a bare list — which is why several trackers now include a wishlist layer.

Can I share a bucket list with my partner?

iBucket is built around shared lists with a partner, friends or family. The Bucket List App also supports sharing. Most map-based trackers are single-user by design.

Does Pin Traveler have a bucket list feature?

Saved locations are available with premium and cover destinations you plan to visit. It is a wishlist layer on a travel map rather than a structured goal system — no checklists to complete or progress bars against a defined set.

Why do bucket list searches return event-booking apps?

Because "bucket list" is used for two different things: a personal list of life goals, and a marketing label for curated local experiences. BucketListers is the second kind. Check which one you are installing.