If you are going to make a long journey or just want to document a city trip, the Polarsteps service is extremely useful. You can add photos and travel stories via the app, your friends and family can follow you and when you are back home, you make a beautiful photo book of your trip.
Tip 01: Sign up
Download the Polarsteps app for Android or iOS from the respective app store. You can register via Facebook or your email address. Tap on OK, got it! and you will be taken to the main page. Polarsteps wants you to set up your profile and possibly set a profile photo, but you can also do this later. You can do two things with Polarsteps: create public travel stories and share them with the world or create a private travelogue for family and friends. In the latter case, put the slider behind Private account at. Give the app access to your camera, photos and location to get the most out of Polarsteps. In step three, the app wants to know your home location, you can skip this if you want. When you are done with the configuration, tap Show me the magic! Despite the fact that the app is made in the Netherlands, Polarsteps only speaks English to you.
If your trip is still away for a while, turn on the slide behind Trip reminders in timeTip 02: Edit profile
The next step is to fill in your profile information and change a few settings. To add a profile picture, tap the icon above your name. Choose a photo from your camera roll or take a photo. Your profile picture is always public. Then tap the gear in the top left and choose My profile. In addition to your name and home location, you can write a short story about yourself here. When you're done, tap Done. Go to Account settings. Here you can choose your unique Polarsteps URL. The app has automatically selected your first and last name as the profile name. Bee Smart Notifications indicate whether you want to receive notifications from Polarsteps and which ones exactly. If you add a trip far in advance, it is useful to close the slider behind Trip reminders turn on. You may receive a notification from the app that you need to turn on Smart Notifications on your system. Tap on Turn smart notifications on and confirm the action in Android or iOS. Now you will receive a notification on the day you have indicated that your journey starts. It's also nice to have the slide behind New likes switch on: this way you know when someone liked a travel message. below App Settings Can you specify some preferences? rear Distance Units select you Kilometers and behind temperature choose you Celsius. If you don't have a data bundle abroad, make sure the slider behind Sync images over 3/4G is turned off. Close the settings by tapping the cross.
space saving
Polarsteps ensures that the app is as small as possible and that it uses as little battery and data as possible. Original versions of photos are uploaded to the Polarsteps servers as soon as you have a WiFi connection. Once a photo is uploaded, the original version of the photo will be removed from the app to give you more free disk space on your smartphone.
Tip 03: Add your trip
You can now add your first trip to your profile. This is best done before you travel. Tap the plus sign at the top right and a new journey will be created. Polarsteps calls a trip a trip. First you give your trip a name, this could be something like Japan 2018, Kitzbühel with the family or City trip March. Bee Start date indicate a start date, at enddate an end date. If you don't know when your trip will end, tap I don't know yet. It is convenient to slide the rear Enable Travel Tracker to leave it on. For example, the app tracks your location while you are traveling during this trip. Polarsteps does not always need an internet connection for this, by the way, it has developed a smart system in which it combines your GPS data with your location data as soon as you connect to the internet. Finally, you indicate who can see your trip. By default this is set to My followers. This is the most convenient option. Only people who follow you and people you sent a secret link can see your journey. Tap on Done and your journey will appear in the main screen. If your start date is in the past and your end date is in the future, you'll see a red badge on your journey that says Now traveling. To add another trip, tap Add a past, current or future trip. You can also add a trip that you have taken in the past. If you want to delete a trip, tap in the top right corner Options / Trip settings and press the trash can at the bottom.
Polarsteps can track your location, without always having to be connected to the internetTip 04: Add step
Each trip consists of several steps, called steps. A step can be one or more photos, a travel report or a combination of both. Tap on your journey and scroll down until you see a big red button with a plus sign; your current location is automatically displayed if your trip is currently taking place. Tap the button to add a step. below step name Polarsteps will automatically indicate the name of the city you are in, but if you want to change the name of the step (for example, to the name of a neighborhood or city nearby), tap it and change it. To add a step to a journey in the past, the button is green and tap Add your first step. Now the app wants you to indicate a location for your first step. below Arrival date and Arrival time choose an arrival date and time. Tap the photo icon to add one or more photos and under What have you been up to? you can type a trip report. Optionally, change the name of your step below step name. Tap on Done and the step will be added to your journey. Your first photo will now automatically become the background photo of your journey and as you scroll through your steps, a green bar with a figure will appear at the top. As soon as you navigate further through your journey, the figure walks to the right. If you want to add a next step, tap the plus sign in front of Traveled for a bit and add a new step. You will find this option between each step. If you want to edit a step, tap the pencil under a step. Once you've added more steps, you can change the cover photo of your trip. You do this by clicking Options / Trip settings tapping and next to the photo Change trip cover to tap.
Tip 05: View on map
A nice feature of Polarsteps is that you can view your complete journey on a map. Once you've added a few steps to your journey, you can click below a step Show onfolder to tap. The step is shown on the map with a pop-up; your other steps can also be seen through dots and small versions of the photos that belong to the step. You can follow your route exactly and zoom in and out on your journey with pinch gestures. Tap the icon at the top left to return to your journey. At the top you will find general information about your trip. You can see how many kilometers you have traveled. Unfortunately, this is a general number and also includes all your flights. You see how many countries you have visited, how many people have viewed your trip and how many likes you have received.
You can precisely follow your route and zoom in and out on your journey with pinch gesturesTip 06: Share a trip or step
To share your journey with others, navigate all the way down and choose one of the options: Facebook, email, Instagram, WhatsApp or via a secret link. Tap one of these options and the share window will be displayed. A unique link is created and you can copy it to your clipboard by clicking Share this link to tap. You can send family and friends this link; people can also view your journey without a Polarsteps account. This can simply be done in a web browser. You can also share a step with others, if you want to let them know about a new event, for example. Under a step, tap the share icon. If a step contains multiple photos, you can swipe left or right on the photo to select another photo. Tap the Facebook or Instagram icon or choose the option Other ways to share.
Tip 07: Make a photo book
The nice thing about Polarsteps is that after your trip you can make a photo book of your complete trip. To do this, tap Options / Create Travel Book. You can do this from the app, but it may be more convenient to do this from a computer. You just log in to your PC with your Polarsteps account details. Go to Travel Books, select your trip and press the button Preview & order. In the app this button is called Preview your travel book. The service now automatically generates a photo book of your trip. You can follow your journey exactly, because not only your photos are shown: you can also see information about the locations where you have been in your photo book. It is nice that you can also see what the weather was like on that day. Polarsteps gets the information from the internet.
Tip 08: Edit photo book
If you want more control over what goes into your photo book and what doesn't, you can click the Edit Travel Book click. You will see two options here: photos and Options. Bee photos you can turn sliders behind certain photos on or off. Only the photos you have selected will appear in your photo book in this way. Conveniently, you can immediately see how many pages your book will have at the bottom left. Bee Options can you point out a few things. Of course you can change the title of the book behind book title, by default this is the name of your trip. Bee book author is your account name, but if you have been out with your partner, you may change this to something else. Polarsteps currently only offers one theme, but you can change the colors. You do this behind theme color. You can choose from turquoise, dark blue, cyan and black. Bee photo grid you choose whether you prefer to see more photos per page or if you prefer mainly large photos. If you uncheck Show step text, your travel reports will not be included in the book. All in all, you don't have many options to change your book, but this is actually handy. This way you don't spend hours working on a photo book and you can have your photo book printed within a few minutes after your trip.
Smart to know: a 25-page book costs as much as a 50-page copy!Tip 09: Order photo book
When you're done editing your book, click Re-Generate Travel Book. If you are satisfied with how your book looks now, click Process to checkout. You will now see that you need at least 24 pages in your book. If you have more than 24 pages, you will see an overview of what your book will cost. As soon as your book contains between 25 and 50 pages, the book will cost forty euros. Shipping is free and in many cases Polarsteps gives you a ten euro discount on your order. It is also useful to know that the company uses the same price for a book with 25 pages as a book with 50 pages. Here you can see exactly what the prices are. The book is printed on 200 gram glossy photo paper and is in A4 format with hardcover. Payment can be made in various ways, including iDEAL, credit card or PayPal.
