Most country trackers ask you to remember every border you have crossed and tap it on a map. Your camera roll already knows. If Location Services were on, the GPS in those photos is a quieter record than your passport.
A new wave of iPhone apps reads that metadata and fills in countries for you. Some stop at a count and a globe. One of them — Atlasi — turns the same photos into trips and place entries you can share. If you still want a manual checklist, the apps to track countries visited roundup covers Been, Skratch, and the rest. If you are replacing Been specifically, see Been alternatives.
We compared the publicly documented features of the 5 best apps that track countries from your photos in 2026.
Atlasi is our app. We've tried to be straight about what it does and doesn't do — including that Photo Import is a trip builder, not a one-tap world percentage.
Photo Country Trackers at a Glance
| App | What the photos become | On-device? | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atlasi | Trips and place entries (Food, Stay, Place, Experience) | Scan on device; place suggestions via the matcher | Free (1 import trip) / Premium |
| Country Count | A country total and map | Yes, no account | Free |
| Unshade | A globe, fog map, and coverage % | Yes, no servers | Free to start |
| Travel Map | Countries, cities, landmarks, passport years | Yes (city names geocode once) | Free to start |
| Pino | Countries, cities, trips, plus photo search | Yes, including on-device search | Free |
1. Atlasi: Best If the Photos Should Become a Trip Log
Atlasi Photo Import does not only paint a country. It scans for geotagged photos, groups nearby shots into location clusters, and suggests matching Google Places. You confirm the ones that are real visits. Atlasi creates trip entries with those photos attached, categorized so a Tokyo week is food, stays, and places rather than 400 undifferentiated pins.
That extra step is the product. It is also slower than an app that only asks "which countries appear in EXIF?"
Why the photos are more useful here
- You get a list a friend can open, not only a shaded Italy.
- Layover photos can be skipped when you review suggestions.
- Free accounts get one photo-import trip; Premium is unlimited.
The drawbacks
- iOS only.
- Place matching needs a network connection. The library scan itself stays on the phone.
- If you truly only want a number, Country Count finishes sooner.
Verdict: Choose Atlasi if "track countries from photos" really means "rebuild the trips those photos came from." Download Atlasi.
2. Country Count: Best If You Only Want the Number
Country Count is the one-tap version of this category. Grant photo access, it reads GPS, it matches coordinates to borders, and it shows how many of 195 sovereign countries you have visited. You can mark older trips by hand when the photos are missing.
There is no account, no email, and no subscription. Scanning stays on the iPhone.
Why it works
- Answers "how many countries have I visited?" from the library you already have.
- Manual override for pre-smartphone travel.
- Honest about the 195-country list (UN members plus Vatican City and Palestine).
The drawbacks
- A count is not a journal. There are no restaurant entries.
- Flyover or airport photos can inflate the number unless you edit them out.
Verdict: Choose Country Count if you want the statistic and nothing wrapped around it.
3. Unshade: Best If You Want a Globe That Lifts Like Fog
Unshade treats your photo GPS as a fog-of-war map. The globe lights up where you have actually pointed a camera. Stats include continent and country coverage, an estimate of land photographed (they claim most people sit under 0.1%), and kilometers between photo points.
No accounts, no cloud sync, no Unshade servers. Three taps: permission, import, explore.
Why it works
- The visualization is the reason to open the app again, not just the integer.
- Regional breakdowns inside countries, not only a binary visited flag.
- Privacy story is simple: coordinates never leave the device.
The drawbacks
- Coverage percentages measure photographed ground, which is a different question from "countries visited."
- No shareable recommendation list.
Verdict: Choose Unshade if you want to see the camera-roll map, not file it.
4. Travel Map: Best If You Want a Year-by-Year Passport From Photos
The App Store listing Travel Map - Visited Countries builds countries, cities, and landmarks from geotagged photos, then adds a passport-history view organized by year. The developers describe that timeline as export-ready for visa paperwork. Country detection uses GeoJSON boundaries they describe as 263 territories.
They contrast themselves with Been (no manual tapping, analysis on device) and PolarSteps (no trip setup). City names need a one-time geocode, then cache.
Why it works
- Automatic country and city layer from the same library.
- Photo galleries under each country, so the map is a browser for memories.
- Useful if you need a chronological travel record, not only a filled map.
The drawbacks
- "Passport history for visas" is a convenience format, not legal advice.
- Still a map-first app: it will not categorize a noodle shop vs a hotel for you.
Verdict: Choose Travel Map if the year-by-year record matters as much as the country count.
5. Pino: Best Fully Free On-Device Option
Pino maps countries and cities from your library entirely on the iPhone, then adds something the others do not: search photos by what is in them, on Apple's Neural Engine, with no upload. Trips group automatically. There is no subscription and no in-app purchase.
That combination — travel map plus local photo search — is the reason it belongs here even though travel tracking is only half the app.
Why it works
- Zero ongoing cost.
- Designed for large, iCloud-optimized libraries.
- Offline after install, aside from iOS fetching iCloud originals it needs to index.
The drawbacks
- iPhone only; iPad and Mac are on the roadmap.
- A map of where you shot is not a list of places to send a friend.
Verdict: Choose Pino if you want the country map as a byproduct of a private photo library app.
Which Photo Tracker Should You Download?
- Trips, places, and a list you can share: Atlasi.
- A free country number tonight: Country Count.
- A globe that reveals photographed ground: Unshade.
- A year-by-year photo passport: Travel Map.
- Free map plus on-device photo search: Pino.
Photos without GPS will not help any of these apps. Turn Location Services on for Camera before the next trip, or mark those countries by hand.
Pricing and features verified September 2026. Competitor plans change; check each app's own pricing page before you buy.