Travel wishlist app with an explore map

Most travel wishlists live in five places at once: a folder of screenshots, saved reels on Instagram, favourites on TikTok, a list in a map app and a note called "one day". When it is time to plan, nobody knows which places belong together. A good wishlist app solves that with three things: it sorts places by city, it shows them on a map, and it turns one city's places into a trip. This guide explains what to look for, shows an example wishlist across Europe and how YesTrip handles it for free. If your ideas mostly come from social media, our guide Save travel spots from Instagram and TikTok goes deeper into finding the real place behind a post.

What a good travel wishlist needs

A wishlist is not a trip yet, so it should stay light. Five features make the difference between a list you use and one you forget.

• Sorted by city: you plan trips to places, not to single sights. A list grouped by city tells you at once where you have collected the most.
• A photo per place: months later, "Plaza de España" means more with a picture next to it.
• Where it came from: a note whether a place came from a TikTok, a reel or your own search helps you judge it later – a feed shows the best moment, not the usual one.
• A map: only on a map do you see which cities are close enough for one trip.
• A step to a trip: the list is only useful if a city's places can become a day plan without typing them all again.

The usual options compared

A list in a map app such as Google Maps is the closest alternative: every saved place appears on the map. But you name and sort the lists yourself, and there is no step from a list to a day-by-day plan. Saved posts on Instagram and TikTok keep the video, not the place – you still have to find out where it is.

The example: 13 places, 8 cities

Here is a typical wishlist after a year of saving: 13 places in eight cities, from the Belém Tower in Lisbon to Nyhavn in Copenhagen.

On a map, the list splits on its own:

Base map: Natural Earth

Six of the eight cities are on the Iberian Peninsula. Rome and Copenhagen are separate trips. But even the Iberian cities are not one week:

Driving times: route calculation based on OpenStreetMap, without breaks. Add about a third.

Lisbon to Barcelona via Seville, Granada and Madrid alone is about 1,750 km of driving. That is the honest answer a map gives you and a feed does not: this wishlist is at least three trips – Lisbon and Porto, Seville and Granada, and Madrid with Barcelona – plus Rome and Copenhagen as city breaks. For the Andalusian part, our Andalusia road trip itinerary has a full route.

How can I turn my wishlist sights into a trip?

Pick one city, add what lies next to your saved places, group everything by area into days and check the tickets – or let a planner do the grouping for you. Step by step:

1. Pick the city with the most places. It usually tells you what you really want. In the example, three cities tie with two places each; take the one with the best season for your dates.
2. Add the neighbours. Look at the map around your saved places and add the sights next to them. Around the Belém Tower, the Jerónimos Monastery is a few minutes' walk away – two places, one morning.
3. Group by area, not by fame. Put places that lie close together on the same day. How to keep each day walkable is explained in Day-by-day itinerary with walking routes.
4. Check tickets and opening days. Famous places often sell timed tickets. The Alhambra in Granada and the Real Alcázar in Seville are examples – check the official websites before you fix the day.
5. Let a planner build the days. In YesTrip, tap "Plan a trip" next to the city on your wishlist. If you like, the AI turns the saved places into a day-by-day plan with times and short walks, and you edit it from there. A plan of up to 5 days in one city costs 5 of the 40 free credits you get each month.

The "Where to next?" sheet in YesTrip also shows up to three cities from your wishlist as trip ideas, each with the number of saved places and a "Plan this trip" button.

Using an explore map to fill the list

Saved posts show you what others found. An explore map shows you what is there. Zoom into a city and you see the well-known sights side by side, each with a photo – often including places that never appear in your feed but are a five-minute walk from the ones that do. That is the quickest way to turn a single saved place into a full day.

How YesTrip does it

YesTrip is a free travel planner, and the wishlist is part of it. You can add places in three ways.

From the explore map: around 6,500 well-known sights in more than 130 destinations, each with a real photo. Zoom into a city, tap a picture and put the place on your wishlist or straight into a trip. That needs no AI and no credits.

From Instagram and TikTok: paste the link to a public post or share it to YesTrip. The app reads the text and location of the post and finds the places it mentions on the map – free and without AI. Anything it is not sure about is marked "Please check". It cannot read what is only spoken or shown in the video, and it cannot read private posts. If the regular search finds nothing, you can let the AI search more precisely for 1 credit.

The wishlist sorts everything by city, with a photo and a line saying where each place came from: TikTok, Instagram or Explore. Every city has a "Plan a trip" button, and if you like, the AI turns the saved places into a trip. The AI features use credits; you get 40 free every month.

What YesTrip does not do: it never books for you. Tickets for the Belém Tower or the Jerónimos Monastery^* you buy from the provider, for example through Tiqets. Your own trips need a free account with a sign-in code by email; the demo works without one. If you start with Lisbon, copy the ready-made plan and add your wishlist places to it.

For the Spanish part of a wishlist like this one, trains often beat the car between the big cities; you can compare train connections in Spain^* at Omio. For Andalusia, where the countryside matters as much as the cities, a hire car gives you more freedom – compare hire cars in Seville^* at Economybookings, for example. How long Lisbon deserves is covered in How many days in Lisbon?.

* Ad – Partner link: if you book there, we earn a commission. Your price stays the same.