Almost every "best travel tracker" list is written from an iPhone. That would not matter if the two stores carried the same apps, but they do not — and in this category the gap is wider than usual.

Some well-known iOS trackers have no Android version at all. More confusingly, at least one popular name exists on both stores as two unrelated apps by different developers, so the reviews you read before installing may describe software you will never see.

This list is Android-first. Everything below is on Google Play.

Why the iOS Been app is not on this Android list

If you have read an iOS roundup, you have seen an app called been recommended — a minimalist country tracker from VINCI APPS. (We compared its iOS model in detail in Pin Traveler vs Been: A Practical Comparison).

Search Google Play for "been" and you will find results, but they are different products from different developers, with different feature sets and different pricing. They are not Android ports of the iOS app; they are separate apps that happen to share a name.

This is worth knowing before you go looking. It is also a reasonable argument for choosing something that ships the same product on both stores, particularly if you switch phones or share a map with someone on iPhone.

Quick comparison

Checked on Google Play, September 2026. Feature sets and pricing change — confirm on the listing before installing.

1. Pin Traveler

What it is: a permanent map you build by pinning the cities, countries and U.S. states you have been to. Same app, same features, on both stores.

The unit is the city, which is what separates it from the country-level trackers. Pinning city by city keeps the resolution — a country map cannot tell the difference between three weeks across Spain and a connection through Madrid, and it registers nothing at all for travel inside your own country. (Explore why this matters in our guide to the best apps to track cities you've visited).

Free tier: unlimited pins for cities, countries and states, the colour-coded map, and travel statistics including most-visited destination, furthest distance and continent coverage. It is a working product, not a trial.

Premium adds: photo uploads, custom pin colours and styles, and saved locations, payable monthly, yearly or once via Pin Traveler Premium or directly via download on Google Play.

Android-specific notes: it is a full release rather than a port, and the map syncs with the iOS and iPad versions, which matters if your household is mixed. It also runs on Mac with Apple silicon and Vision Pro if you ever cross over.

What it does not do: track you automatically. You add destinations yourself. That means no background location permission and no battery cost, and it means the map only reflects what you enter.

2. Polarsteps

The strongest automatic option on Android. It runs in the background, records your route by GPS and turns a journey into a map and timeline without you doing anything, with planning tools and a social layer around it.

If the route itself is what you want recorded — a long overland trip, a road journey where the road is the story — this is the app built for that, and manual pinning will not reconstruct it afterwards. We analyzed these two different philosophies in Pin Traveler vs Polarsteps: A Practical Comparison, and curated the best Polarsteps alternatives in 2026.

Two structural limits, neither of which is a flaw so much as a consequence of the model: it cannot know about travel from before you installed it, and it expects travel to arrive as discrete trips, so weekends and short domestic hops tend to go unlogged.

3. Visited

Checklist-driven: countries, U.S. states, regional maps for over 20 countries, and 150-plus categories to work through — heritage sites, parks, food destinations.

Good if finishing a defined set is the appeal. Less good if you wanted a simple map, because the same breadth that makes it engaging also makes it busy. Read our detailed head-to-head analysis in Pin Traveler vs Visited: A Practical Comparison.

4. FindPenguins

Trip journaling with automatic route logging, and one of the more generous free tiers in the category. It also turns routes into flyover videos, which is a genuinely nice output.

Its own listing highlights battery-friendly, offline-capable tracking — a real consideration on Android, where background location behaviour varies a lot between manufacturers and aggressive battery management can quietly kill a tracking app. If you have had a fitness or tracking app stop logging on a Samsung or Xiaomi handset, you know the problem.

Less polished visually than Polarsteps; more usable for free.

5. Skratch

Countries, cities, states, regions and attractions, presented as a scratch map with a passport-style stats view, bucket lists and destination inspiration. It also sells travel eSIMs, which is either handy or irrelevant depending on how you travel.

Built for the shareable artefact more than the precise record.

6. Journi

Photo-led trip journaling, with the distinguishing feature being physical output: it turns a trip into a printed photo book. If the end goal is something on a shelf rather than a map on a phone, that is a real differentiator and nothing else here does it. (For more reflective travel apps, check the best travel journal apps in 2026).

As a tracker it is trip-shaped rather than lifetime-shaped, so it answers "what happened on this journey" better than "everywhere I have been".

7. Google Maps Timeline

Android's native answer, and the one that has changed most.

Timeline records where your phone has been automatically, which is the most complete raw data source available to an Android user. But it produces location history, not a travel map — no country count, no city map, no way to add travel from before you carried the phone.

It is also no longer safe to treat as an archive. The web version was retired, history moved to on-device storage with a default retention window that discarded older data, and a March 2025 fault deleted years of history for users without a backup, which Google acknowledged. Anything you want to keep should be recorded somewhere you control.

We wrote up what changed and what to do instead in Google Maps Timeline is gone.

Android background tracking and battery optimization

On iOS, background location behaviour is fairly consistent. On Android it is not — battery optimisation differs by manufacturer, and aggressive power management on some handsets will suspend a background app without telling you.

For automatic trackers that is a genuine risk: you come home from a trip and find gaps in the route. It is worth checking your battery settings and excluding the app before a big trip if you go the automatic route.

Manual trackers sidestep this entirely. Nothing runs in the background, so nothing can be suspended, and the record is whatever you entered. Which of those trade-offs you prefer is the real Android decision.

Which Android travel tracker fits your needs

• A lifetime map, city level, identical across phones — Pin Traveler

• Automatic route tracking on long trips — Polarsteps

• Automatic tracking, free, battery-conscious — FindPenguins

• Completing curated lists — Visited

• A map made to share — Skratch

• A printed book at the end — Journi

• Raw automatic history — Timeline, with the caveats above

Frequently asked questions

What is the best travel tracker app for Android?

It depends on whether you want a permanent record or a trip log. For a lifetime map of cities, countries and U.S. states with unlimited free pins, Pin Traveler ships the same app on Android as on iOS. For automatic GPS route tracking, Polarsteps and FindPenguins are the two established options on Google Play.

Is the "been" app on Android the same as the iPhone one?

No. The apps named "been" on Google Play come from different developers than the iOS app of that name, with different features. If you have read an iOS review of "been", it is not describing what you will install on Android.

Are there free travel tracker apps on Android?

Yes. Pin Traveler's free tier covers unlimited city, country and state pins with the map and statistics. FindPenguins has one of the more generous free tiers among automatic trackers.

Will an automatic tracker work reliably on my Android phone?

It depends on the handset. Battery optimisation varies by manufacturer and can suspend background apps, leaving gaps in a recorded route. If you use an automatic tracker, exclude it from battery optimisation before a long trip. Manual trackers avoid the issue because nothing runs in the background.

Can I track cities as well as countries on Android?

Pin Traveler treats cities as the core unit and includes them free. Visited and Skratch support cities alongside other layers. Several trackers stop at the country level or charge for city tracking, so check before installing.

Can I move my travel map between Android and iPhone?

Only if the app ships on both stores with a shared account. Pin Traveler, Polarsteps, Visited, FindPenguins, Skratch and Journi are all on both. Apps that exist on only one store — or that are different products under the same name — cannot carry your map across.