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Meridian Dispatch vs TripMemo

Both are iPhone travel journals, and both have a $19.99 yearly plan. The difference is who does the work. In TripMemo you make each trip book yourself. In Meridian Dispatch, your past trips are found the first time you open the app and written up for you.

Last updated 27 September 2026/TripMemo details checked 27 September 2026

The short answer

Choose TripMemo if you want to build a scrapbook with a partner or friends in real time and share it as a web link.

Choose Meridian Dispatch if you want your trips found and written up for you, with nothing to log, no location access and your photos kept on your phone.

At a glance

TripMemo details checked 27 September 2026, from its own website and App Store listing.
Feature	Meridian Dispatch	TripMemo
How a trip gets in	Trips abroad found automatically in your camera roll, from the geotags on your photos	You create a TripBook and add the photos, and TripMemo sorts them by day and place
Who writes it	The app writes each day in prose. You can edit every line or regenerate a passage	You write your own notes and captions
Planning	Forward booking confirmations and get a day-by-day itinerary, with suggestions that say why to go and how long to stay	An AI planner builds a day-by-day itinerary from your destination, dates, pace and travel style
Location access	Never requested	Used when you tag a memory, use the map or let it detect where a photo was taken. Precise and coarse location are on its App Store privacy label
Your photos	Never uploaded. They stay on your iPhone, with your trips and journal	Stored with its cloud providers by default, according to its privacy policy
Tracking	No "Data Used to Track You" on the App Store privacy label	Its label lists purchases, contact info, identifiers and usage data as used to track you
Sharing	No social features. Export a trip and share it wherever you like	Real-time shared TripBooks, web links anyone can open without the app, stat cards and a leaderboard game
Export	A print-ready PDF journal laid out like a magazine, or a short video	Shareable stat images, photo downloads and a data export in Settings
Price	Free for your last five years of trips and one trip in planning. Membership is $19.99 a year	Sold by subscription: weekly, monthly or yearly. Yearly is listed at $19.99 and $34.99 on the US App Store. TripMemo says each person editing a shared TripBook needs one
Platforms	iPhone, iOS 18 or later	iPhone, iOS 17 or later

How each one works

TripMemo is a scrapbook you fill in. You tap the plus button to start a TripBook, set the place and dates, then drop in photos and write notes beside them. It sorts the photos by day and location, and it can plan a trip with AI before you go.

Meridian Dispatch starts from the other end. When you grant photo access, it reads the geotags already on your pictures, finds your trips abroad, and writes each one up as a day-by-day journal, every place named and laid out like a magazine. You do not create anything. For a trip ahead, you forward the booking emails and the itinerary builds itself.

So the real question is how much you want to do. If writing the captions is the part you enjoy, TripMemo gives you the pages. If you have years of trips you never got round to recording, Meridian Dispatch starts on them the moment you grant photo access.

Privacy is the biggest difference

TripMemo uses your location when you tag a memory or open the map, stores your photos with its cloud providers, and sends some of what you give it to an AI provider to plan trips and pull out places. Its App Store label lists data used to track you across other companies' apps and websites, and its privacy policy names advertising measurement tools, including Meta's.

Meridian Dispatch never asks for your location. Your photos are never copied or uploaded: trip detection and photo ranking run on your iPhone, and to name places and write each day, the app sends place names and approximate locations, never images. Its App Store label carries no "Data Used to Track You" section at all. If you would rather your photos never reach a company's servers, this is the line that decides it.

What it costs

On paper the price is the same: both have a $19.99 yearly plan. TripMemo is sold by subscription, weekly, monthly or yearly, and it says each person editing a shared TripBook needs a subscription of their own; people who only view it do not.

Meridian Dispatch is free for the last five years of your trips and one trip in planning, which is enough to see your own history written before you pay anything. Membership, $19.99 a year, opens every trip you have ever taken and as many plans as you like. You can cancel anytime from your App Store settings.

Which one is right for you

Choose TripMemo if

you want to make the scrapbook yourself, caption by caption
you are building a trip book together with a partner or friends
you want to share a trip as a link anyone can open in a browser
you like travel stats, badges and a leaderboard

Choose Meridian Dispatch if

you have years of trips you never wrote down
you want the journal written for you, in real prose
you do not want an app that asks for your location
you want your photos to stay on your iPhone
you want a print-ready PDF of each trip

Questions

Is Meridian Dispatch cheaper than TripMemo?

Both have a $19.99 yearly plan. Meridian Dispatch is also free for your last five years of trips and one trip in planning, while TripMemo is sold as a weekly, monthly or yearly subscription, and it says each person editing a shared TripBook needs their own.

Does TripMemo write the journal for you?

No. In TripMemo you add the photos and write the notes; it sorts the photos by day and place. Meridian Dispatch writes each day in prose from your photographs, and you can edit any line.

Can I share a trip with family in Meridian Dispatch?

Yes, by exporting it. Every trip exports as a print-ready PDF journal or a short video that you can send anywhere. There are no shared editing, followers or public profiles, which is by design.

Which one finds my old trips?

Meridian Dispatch finds them for you: it reads the geotags on the photos already in your camera roll and builds a journal for each trip abroad it finds. In TripMemo you create a TripBook for each trip; its bulk upload then sorts the photos you pick into days.

Can I use both?

Yes. They do not conflict: you could keep a shared scrapbook in TripMemo for a group trip and let Meridian Dispatch keep the private record of everything else.

Other comparisons

Where the TripMemo details come from