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Meridian Dispatch vs Visited

A map of everywhere you have been can be coloured in by hand or read from your camera roll. Visited is a tracker you colour in by hand: countries, states, regions, cities and long travel lists. Meridian Dispatch lights the countries up on its globe from the geotags on your photos, then writes each trip up as a journal.

Last updated 24 October 2026/Visited details checked 24 October 2026

The short answer

Choose Visited if you want a been-there map you build yourself, with regions, cities, travel lists and stats, or if you use Android, an iPad or a Mac.

Choose Meridian Dispatch if you want the map filled in for you from the trips abroad already in your camera roll, and each of those trips written up as a journal in real prose.

At a glance

Visited details checked 24 October 2026, from its own website and App Store listing.
Feature	Meridian Dispatch	Visited
How places get on the map	Found from the geotags on the photos in your camera roll. Countries you have visited light up on the globe	Ticked off by hand from the app's maps and lists. It does not read your photos or your location
How fine the map goes	Countries on the globe, with every place you went named inside each trip's journal	Countries and US, Canadian and Australian regions free. City maps and regional maps for other countries are paid
Lists and stats	None. The globe shows where you have been, planned trips and the arcs of your journeys	Over 150 travel lists, such as Wonders of the World and Castles, and a dashboard with the share of the world you have seen and stats by continent
The trips themselves	Each trip abroad is written up day by day in real prose from your photos, every place named. You can edit every line	Travel journal notes you add by country: dates, points of interest or personal memories
Your photos	Grouped into the places you went, the strongest picked. Never uploaded	Does not read your photos. Its photos are inspiration pictures you swipe through to build a bucket list
Planning	Import a trip planned in ChatGPT, Claude or any AI with one tap, forward booking confirmations, or build it yourself. Claude, ChatGPT or Grok can also build and edit the plan through the Meridian Dispatch connector	A bucket list by country, plus itineraries with dates, hotels and notes, a paid unlock
Sharing	None. No followers, feed or profiles. You can export a trip and send it yourself	Maps, lists and itineraries can be shared, and you can compare your travels with a friend on one map
Keepsake	A print-ready PDF journal laid out like a magazine, a short video, and an offline trip map	A printed scratch-map poster of your travels
Price	Free for your last five years of trips and one trip in planning. Membership is $19.99 a year	Free with ads. The US App Store lists Visited Pro at $59.99, a yearly plan at $34.99 and a monthly one at $9.99, plus single unlocks such as Cities and Remove Ads
Platforms	iPhone, iOS 18 or later	iPhone and iPad (iOS 17.6 or later), Mac, Apple Vision and Android

A checklist or a camera roll

Visited is a checklist with a map attached. You open a country, state or region and mark it as somewhere you have been, lived or want to go, and the map colours in. Travel lists add more to tick, from castles to wine regions, and a dashboard turns it into numbers: how much of the world you have seen and how each continent stacks up.

Meridian Dispatch starts from your camera roll. The first time you open it, it reads the geotags on the photos already on your iPhone, finds your trips abroad, and lights those countries up on a 3D globe. Open a trip and each day is written up in real prose, with your best photos and every place named.

So one is a map you build and the other is a map that builds itself. Visited does not read your photos, which means nothing is filled in until you do it. Meridian Dispatch fills in only what your photos show, and only trips abroad: a domestic weekend away will not appear.

Where Visited goes further

If the map is the point, Visited covers far more ground. It tracks states and regions as well as countries, city maps on the paid tier, and more than 150 travel lists to work through. Meridian Dispatch has no lists, no percentages and no regional map.

It also runs almost everywhere: iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Vision and Android. You can share your map with friends, compare it with theirs on one screen, and order it printed as a poster for the wall. Meridian Dispatch is iPhone only and has no sharing beyond exporting a trip yourself.

And it works for places you have never photographed: tick any country and it goes on the map. Meridian Dispatch lights up its globe only from photos in your camera roll. In its travel preferences ("How you like to travel"), a "Countries you have been to" list lets you add or remove countries by hand, but that shapes suggestions and does not change the globe.

What you get from each trip

Visited records that you went. Its journal is a set of notes you type by country, with dates and memories, and its photos are travel pictures for inspiration rather than your own.

Meridian Dispatch records what happened. Each day is written up from your photos while you travel, and the morning after the trip ends it becomes a finished journal laid out like a magazine. You can edit every line, export it as a print-ready PDF, or make a short video from the trip's photos on your phone.

On privacy, neither asks to track you. Visited says it does not track your location or read your photos' metadata, and keeps what you type on its servers, encrypted at rest. Meridian Dispatch never asks for location access, ranks your photos on your iPhone and never uploads them; to name places and write each day, it sends our server, and through it our AI provider, the location of each group of photos, never the photos themselves.

A free map, paid lists

Visited is free to download, with ads, and the free tier covers the country map and stats, with the full set of travel lists in the paid tier. On the US App Store, Visited Pro is listed at $59.99 as a one-time purchase, with a yearly plan at $34.99 and a monthly one at $9.99, and single unlocks for cities, regions, itineraries and removing ads.

Meridian Dispatch is free for your trips from the last five years and one trip in planning. Membership, $19.99 a year, opens every trip from any year and unlimited plans, with no monthly plan. The globe shows every country you have visited on any tier, and the PDF journal is free on every trip you can open.

Which one is right for you

Choose Visited if

you only want a been-there map, without a journal
you want to track states, regions and cities, not just countries
you enjoy working through travel lists and watching the stats climb
you want to add places you never photographed
you want to share your map and compare it with friends
you use Android, an iPad or a Mac

Choose Meridian Dispatch if

you would rather not tick off countries by hand
you have years of trips abroad in your camera roll
you want each trip written up in real prose, not just marked as visited
you want a magazine-style PDF journal of every trip
you already plan trips with ChatGPT, Claude or another AI
you want Claude, ChatGPT or Grok to build and edit the plan in the app for you

Questions

Is Meridian Dispatch a good Visited alternative?

It is if you want the map filled in for you and a journal of each trip. Meridian Dispatch lights up the countries you have visited from your photos and writes every trip abroad up in prose. If you want regions, cities, travel lists and stats, Visited is the better tool.

Does Meridian Dispatch track regions, states or cities like Visited?

No. The globe lights up countries. The places you went inside each country are named in that trip's journal, but there is no regional map, city checklist or percentage of the world seen.

Can I add a country I visited but never photographed?

Meridian Dispatch finds trips from the geotags on your photos and covers trips abroad only, so a country you never photographed will not light up on the globe. You can add it by hand under "Countries you have been to" in the app's travel preferences, but that list shapes suggestions and does not change the globe. Visited lets you tick off any country by hand and the map colours in.

Can I import an itinerary from ChatGPT or Claude?

Yes. Plan the trip in ChatGPT, Claude or any AI chatbot, paste in the prompt from the import guide, and tap the link it sends back. The whole trip lands in your plan, day by day, hotels included.

Can Claude, ChatGPT or Grok edit my Meridian Dispatch plans?

Yes, with the Meridian Dispatch connector. Add it in Claude, ChatGPT or Grok and sign in once. Your assistant can then create a plan, edit it as you talk, read the plans already in the app and your travel preferences, and answer from Meridian Dispatch guides. A free account holds one plan in planning; membership holds as many as you like.

Is Visited free?

Visited is free to download, with ads, and the free tier includes the country map and stats, with the full set of travel lists in the paid tier. Paid options on the US App Store include Visited Pro at $59.99, a yearly plan at $34.99 and a monthly plan at $9.99. Meridian Dispatch is free for your last five years of trips, with membership at $19.99 a year.

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Where the Visited details come from