You start a trip
One tap when you head out. That is the entire interaction Ryokōya asks of you for the rest of the day.
旅行屋 — ryokō-ya, “the travel shop.” A travel journal for iPhone.
Walk the city.
We'll keep the diary.
Start a trip and put your phone in your pocket. Ryokōya notices the café you sat in, the walk between the stops, and the neighborhood you crossed without meaning to — then hands you back the day as a story worth keeping.
iPhone · Coming to the App Store · Your trips stay in your own iCloud
The whole idea
Three things happen. You do one of them.
It watches quietly
Arrivals, departures, the route between them, the neighborhoods you cross. In your pocket, screen off, nothing to remember.
You get the day back
A written story, a map of where you actually went, stamps for the neighborhoods you earned, and a card worth posting.
What you end up with
A travel journal that writes itself, and never makes things up.
The route, not the highlights reel
Every walk, ferry and subway leg, drawn as it happened — including the parts where your screen was off.
A story in your own day's words
Written from what actually happened. If Ryokōya didn't see it, it doesn't claim it — absence reads as absence.
Stamps you have to earn
Neighborhood seals and city crowns that only mint when you genuinely arrived. No participation trophies.
A book, not a feed
Every trip lays out as a designed book — city page, story, maps, your photos — and exports as a PDF to keep or print yourself. Ordering a hardcover in-app is coming later.
Your photos, in the right places
Pictures you took are matched to the stops where you took them, so the journal fills itself in.
Plans for the trip ahead
Build a route before you fly, check the weather window, and watch your wishlist light up as you get near it.
City packs
Thirty-one cities, curated by hand and checked by hand.
Not a scrape of the top-rated anything. Every place in a Ryokōya pack was chosen for a reason, written up in a sentence worth reading, and verified — coordinates, opening doors, and whether it still exists at all.
Each city has a tabitomo: a small local companion with a story of their own, who turns up in your trip summaries and signs your books. Gigi guards Paris. Pon works Tokyo. Coo runs New York, badly.
31Cities today
173Packs
1,798Places
1Free pack each
More cities are being curated and will arrive in updates — packs you already own are never affected, and every new city ships with a free pack so you can try it before buying anything.
The tabitomo
Every city keeps someone who shows you around.
A tabitomo (旅友, “travel friend”) is the small local spirit of a city — each with folklore of their own, written rather than generated. They turn up in your trip summaries, react to what you actually did, and sign your books. Thirty-one so far, one waiting in every city.
The part most travel apps get wrong
Your movements are the most personal data you have.
Ryokōya is built by one person, sells software rather than attention, and has no reason to know where you were. So it doesn't.
- No trackers, no analytics, no ad networks. There are no third-party SDKs in the app at all — not one.
- Your trips live on your device, and in your iCloud if you turn on backup. There is no Ryokōya server holding your history.
- This website loads nothing from anyone else. No fonts, no scripts, no pixels, no cookies.
- Share cards leave your home out of it — the first and last stop of a trip never appear on anything you post.
Some days deserve a record.
Ryokōya is coming to the App Store for iPhone. Questions before then are welcome — there is a real person at the other end.