What's new
Updates and improvements to TravelType.
May 25, 2026
New
- You can now pick your time zone under Settings → Language. Dates and times will adjust accordingly.
- Photo cards now show a small source label — tap it to open the original page.
May 23, 2026
New
- Search now works without signing in. Cities and places turn up immediately — your own lists only show up after you sign in.
- Push notifications are now live: when you unlock a new tier, you get a heads-up directly on your device — even if TravelType is running in the background. Enable in Settings → Notifications.
Improvements
- While typing in search, a small spinner shows that results are being refreshed. Screen readers are now informed about updates too.
- Waiting states when activating push and signing in are now visible (spinner instead of a frozen-looking button).
- The marketing footer is no longer shown on signed-in pages.
- Copy cleanup: clearer wording around email handling and data processing, sharper empty-states and roadmap language. About page rewritten.
- The language switcher now only appears on the public-facing pages. Once you're signed in, set the language permanently under Settings → Language.
- City pages now lead with a central map: pan or zoom, and the place list adjusts to what's visible. Phones get a draggable bottom-sheet; larger screens show the map and a scrollable list side by side. Use ?view=list or ?view=split to pick the other layouts.
- Transactional emails (sign-in link, email confirmation, password reset) now show the TravelType logo and use the new brand colours.
- The TravelType logo now appears in the header and footer across the whole site — not only in the browser tab.
- TravelType has a new visual home: a warm cream Linen background, deep Atlas blue as the brand colour, and a typographic mix of Newsreader (display), IBM Plex Sans (body) and IBM Plex Mono (coordinates and match scores). The look-and-feel is consistent across the whole app.
Important fixes
- Signing in with a password now visibly shows a spinner while the request is processed.
- The "Sign out" button at the bottom of the profile page now appears only on mobile — on desktop, use the menu in the top right.
May 22, 2026
New
- Notifications are here: a bell in the header now shows your alerts. We'll let you know when you unlock a new tier. Under Settings → Notifications you can choose which alerts you receive — and if you've installed TravelType, you can enable push notifications (actual sending comes with the next update).
- City pages now have a map: explore places visually on every city — alongside the familiar list. Tap a marker and the map centres on it. On mobile, a bottom-sheet lets you drag the list up or down. Switch between list, map, or both via the toggle in the top right.
Improvements
- Browser tab and home-screen icon now show the TravelType logo. If you've installed TravelType on your iPhone, opening it shows a branded splash screen instead of a white flash — and it adapts to light/dark mode.
Various bugfixes and stability improvements
May 21, 2026
New
- Quick search via ⌘K (or Ctrl+K): start typing and find cities, places, tags, countries and your lists in one modal. Understands English and native spellings ("Munich"/"München", "Prague"/"Praha") and suggests corrections for typos.
- Going global: the cities directory now spans about 25,000 cities across all 194 countries — from international metropolises to regionally-known destinations. Paginated 50 per page. POIs get filled in over time — the autopilot handles it in the background.
Improvements
- Search is now noticeably smarter: "Hamburg" finds the famous city first, then smaller ones. "Museum" finds all museum-tagged places, not only those with "Museum" in their name. With location permission granted, nearby places get priority.
- Search now works with diacritics: "nevs" finds "Nevşehir", "koln" finds "Köln", "lodz" finds "Łódź", "cordoba" finds "Córdoba". Applies across cities, POIs, and lists.
- Cities directory: search + country filter added. Caribbean and overseas territories (Aruba, Curaçao, Réunion, Martinique, New Caledonia, etc.) now appear under their own country code instead of the parent state.
- Header & footer polish: avatar appears after login without refresh, now perfectly round everywhere, footer on all pages except map.
May 20, 2026
New
- Places now get auto-generated richer descriptions in German and English. Better recommendations through more accurate tags.
Improvements
- Deactivated places now disappear everywhere: city pages, search, recommendations, rating feed.
- Detail pages now have rich snippets. Better visibility in Google (with rating stars) and in LLM search engines like Perplexity or ChatGPT Search.
Important fixes
- Google login works again. After yesterday's URL refactor the post-login redirect was still pointing at the old address.
May 19, 2026
New
- Global search at /search — find cities, places and your lists in one input. Reachable via the magnifier icon in the top right (desktop) or the new tab at the bottom (mobile). Type a term and it lands in the URL — share the search or use the back button to jump back to a previous query.
- Desktop now has its own header with navigation and a profile menu in the top right (Profile, Settings, Sign out). Mobile keeps the bottom tab bar. Plus: back buttons on detail pages remember where you came from — from "Discover" "back" leads there, not to a static parent.
- About page is live: the story behind TravelType (from a Maltese viewpoint to the app), what it does differently, current stats, a roadmap teaser, privacy/terms/imprint bundled, plus a contact address.
- New Tour page: step-by-step explanation of how TravelType works, animated rating demo, privacy promise, and FAQ section. Reachable from the top marketing nav.
- "Discover" is now reachable for everyone — no sign-in required. Guests see the top-rated places across DACH with a sign-up prompt further down. Signed-in users below 150 ratings see the same top places plus an unlock-progress bar. Past 150 ratings, the personalized recommendations stay as before.
- Persistent navigation: as a guest the marketing nav is now visible across all public pages — cities, countries, POIs, detail pages. Six sections: Discover, Map, Cities, Countries, Tour, About. Plus active-state highlighting for the page you're currently on.
- Sign out directly from the profile — new button opens an in-place confirmation dialog, no more screen switch.
Improvements
- URLs are now uniformly English (e.g. /cities/koeln instead of /staedte/koeln). Language lives in your profile and a cookie — the URL stays the same regardless of your language setting. Old German URLs no longer work; please refresh your bookmarks.
- Profile is now a hub with tabs: Overview and History live under one page. The separate History entry in the navigation is gone; old bookmarks to /verlauf still land in the right place.
- About page: story revised — first-person now, with the focus on the app rather than the founder. Plus layout fixes for centered sections.
- Tour page: copy taken back a notch, hero layout tidied up, missing translations in the privacy section fixed.
- Recommendations page merged: what was on the Recommendations page now lives on Discover — one home for every personalized suggestion.
- Burger menu cleaned up: just navigation and the language switch. Auth flows through the Get-started button in the header.
- Mobile: Sign in and Sign up are now reachable directly from the landing-page burger menu.
- Navigation: language switch now only on public pages. Logged-in users set their language centrally in settings. Plus: the marketing menu now has a hamburger on mobile with all sections inside.
Important fixes
- Discover page now shows places starting from the first rating. A quality threshold was too high for the current dataset and was leaving the page blank. Plus a friendly note in case no ratings exist yet.
- Mobile: the bottom tab bar now only appears after sign-in — guests no longer see it. Plus: on "Discover" the tab bar would occasionally slip off-screen on first load — fixed.
- Mobile: content at the bottom of every page no longer hidden behind the tab bar — clearance reserved for the navigation.
Various bugfixes and stability improvements
May 18, 2026
New
- Mobile navigation: new bottom tab bar with five sections (Map, Lists, Rate, Discover, Profile), Rate elevated as the central pink button. On desktop, "Discover" and "Countries" are now in the main nav.
- Map — discover all places on an interactive map with cluster view when zoomed out and color-coded top matches
- Lists — save places to multiple custom lists instead of a single wishlist, with a bookmark icon on every card
Improvements
- Map UX: drawer stays where you left it after closing a POI (no more pop-up surprise), match-strength pill opens an info dialog when tapped, larger handle to grab and more breathing room top-right
- POI cards: quick-rate sits directly at the top edge when the match score isn't unlocked yet (previously left an empty gap)
- Map: place cards in the list and popup now carry quick-rate + list-bookmark directly on the image. On mobile the drawer slides away when you tap a place (full popup view), starts smaller so more of the map is visible, and the back-button is a compact circle.
- Map polish: left list as a grid (2–3 columns on wider screens), mobile drawer handle for drag and tap, legend always visible with lock icons for not-yet-unlocked match tiers
- Map redesigned: list left + map right Airbnb-style (mobile gets a draggable bottom sheet), vibrant new colors for all four match tiers, and cluster counts are now correct even at country-level zoom
- Map polish: top matches as pulsing image markers, three color tiers (pink/amber/gray) for match scores, toggleable filters, clickable map popups with image + list button
- Lists polish: preview collage of up to 4 place images per list, descriptions on the detail page, and a new Settings lightbox prepping friends + public lists
- Lists polish: profile now shows your lists directly, mobile keyboard "Done" creates instantly, and "New list" is a clean tappable card
Important fixes
- Map mobile bugfixes: drawer now remembers where you had it when you close a POI, stays visible when the browser URL bar collapses, and the match legend is a compact pill until you've unlocked it
- Map mobile bugfixes: map stays interactive after closing a place popup (previously froze), markers easier to tap (larger invisible touch area), tapping empty map closes the popup, explicit X button on the popup
- Map: left list now shows 30 places initially with infinite scroll instead of all at once (previously caused browser lag with many places)
May 17, 2026
New
- POI pool significantly expanded — 13,000+ places across all DACH cities to rate
- Places can be rated directly from any list view — the icon under the match badge opens the quick-rate switch
- Rating now shows places sorted by match — highest first
- Recommendations sortable by match, date, or random
- Hovering a match badge now shows the reasoning
- Recommendations can be filtered by country (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
Improvements
- Deeper Wikidata coverage — all DACH major cities now with the maximum available POI pool (21,000+ places)
- Remove rating — clicking the active rating in the quick-select removes it
- Quick-rate menu now opens and closes with smooth animation
- Your own rating status is now visible on every place card
- Rating suggestions become more relevant with each rating
- Match scores animate when you rate
Important fixes
- Mobile quick-rate finally fixed — card structure rebuilt, previously taps on the rating buttons still landed on the detail page
- POI duplicates cleaned up — the same place was shown up to 27 times in the catalog, now deduplicated
- City pages now surface famous places first and paginate through every available place — previously top results were random and only 100 were visible
- Rating history and recent-ratings section on profile were empty despite existing ratings — fixed
- Recommendation pages were briefly offline after the last update — fixed
- Sign-in with different methods (Google, Facebook, email) now automatically links to your existing account — no more duplicate accounts
Various bugfixes and stability improvements
May 16, 2026
New
- What's new redesigned — grouped by date with sections for new features, improvements, and bugfixes
- Match scores now appear on every card — POIs, cities, and countries
- Country detail pages now show match scores for their cities
- 1000+ new places in major DACH cities to rate
Improvements
- Match badges are clearly readable over images
- Images stored locally — significantly faster load times
Various bugfixes and stability improvements
May 15, 2026
New
- Country overview with 194 countries and Country > City > Place hierarchy
- Taste profile in 3 tiers — gets more detailed at 20, 100, and 200 ratings
- Gradual unlocking of new features at 20, 50, 100, 150, and 200 ratings
- Country recommendations — find countries matching your taste
- AI explains in your style why a place matches your taste
- Match scores as percentage badges on recommendation cards
- New categories: Romance and Mystery
- Match scores for cities with AI-generated reasoning
Improvements
- Recommendation algorithm significantly more accurate via improved tag weighting
- Images from Wikipedia/Wikimedia for each place
- POIs and cities are clickably linked everywhere (profile, history)
- Local flag icons instead of external sources (privacy-first)
- Faster loading of AI text via streaming
Various bugfixes and stability improvements
May 14, 2026
New
- Discover page with personalized recommendation feed
- POI detail pages for every place with description, map, and similar places
- City detail pages show all places in the city
- "Similar places" section on POI detail pages
- Recommendation system based on your ratings
- Public profile pages with privacy toggle
- Avatar stack — see who has rated a place
- Map preview on POI pages (privacy-compliant with consent)
- Statistics section for each city (rating distribution)
Improvements
- Clear breadcrumb navigation back to city and country
Various bugfixes and stability improvements
May 13, 2026
New
- Public "What's new" changelog page
- Sign in with Google and Facebook (automatic account linking)
- Sign in with password plus forgot-password flow
- Cities overview page with DACH top 50
- Complete profile with first name, last name, and bio
- Profiles can be set public or private (username URL)
Improvements
- Privacy-compliant analytics — no external tracker, no cookie banner
- Update banner with reload prompt for new app versions
- Settings split into 5 clear sections (profile, language, email, data, about)
- Edit profile directly from the profile header
- UI polish for checkboxes, radio buttons, and switches
Various bugfixes and stability improvements
May 12, 2026
New
- Choose your own username (during onboarding and in settings)
- Upload profile picture with automatic compression
May 11, 2026
New
- TravelType is live at traveltype.app
- Onboarding flow with welcome screen and language selection
- First taste profile at 20 ratings (Tier-1)
Improvements
- Renamed to TravelType (previous working title: Place Tinder)
Various bugfixes and stability improvements
May 10, 2026
New
- Landing page (homepage)
- Legal pages — imprint, terms, privacy
- Settings area with privacy, language, data export
Improvements
- Various design improvements and polish
Various bugfixes and stability improvements
May 9, 2026
New
- POI pool expanded from 95 to 205 places
- Profile page with taste chart and top cities
- History page with all your ratings
- Travel archetype system based on taste
Various bugfixes and stability improvements
May 8, 2026
New
- Rating system with swipe gesture (Tinder-style)
- Login with magic link
- Initial onboarding flow
Various bugfixes and stability improvements