Say a friend sends you a Reel: a mezcaleria in Oaxaca, the kind of video with a specific drink recommendation and a shot of the bartender at the end. Here is exactly what happens to it, from the moment you tap share to the moment you are standing outside that bar, in order.
More than 23,000 travelers have used Plotline to map over 1.6 million places from 460,000-plus social media posts, spanning 236 countries and 26,836 cities.
Capture: getting the place out of the video and onto a map
There are two ways a post reaches Plotline. The first is the iOS share sheet: from TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, a Google Maps list, Apple Maps, or any website, including review sites like Yelp and Tripadvisor, you tap share, select Plotline, and the post is sent for processing. The second is specific to Instagram: connect your account once at getplotline.app/connect, and after that you can DM any Reel straight to @plotline.app without opening the share sheet at all. This covers Reels, including ones cross-posted from TikTok or YouTube that carry a link back to the original, but not carousels or slideshows, since Instagram does not pass along a link for those post types over DM.
Once the mezcaleria Reel is in, Plotline reads it for every place it names, not just the first one mentioned. If the same video also points out the market stall next door and a viewpoint at the end of the street, all three get pulled out as three separate places. This is not a rare case: posts name 3.85 places on average, and the record so far is 317 places extracted from a single Instagram post. Extraction means more than pulling a name out of a caption or a voiceover, too: each place is matched to a real location, so the pin that lands on your map is the actual bar, not an approximate guess at where it might be. Each place also keeps the specific detail the creator called out, in this case the drink they ordered and why, attached directly to that pin instead of staying trapped back in the video where you would forget it.
Organize: what happens once the pin lands on your map
Each extracted place is geocoded and filed into one of nine categories: eat, brew, sip, explore, vibe, stay, shop, go, party. The mezcaleria lands under sip, the market stall under eat, the viewpoint under explore. From there you can filter your whole map by city, category, vibe or mood, or the source it came from, so "everywhere I saved in Oaxaca that's a bar" is a filter, not a search through your camera roll.
Places can belong to more than one Collection, and a Collection can be shared with other people through an invite link, useful for starting a shared "Oaxaca 2026" map with a travel partner before any dates or itinerary exist. Individual places can be marked as favorites or visited, and you can attach your own notes to any pin, notes that your search also matches, so if you wrote "the one with the loud parrot" you can find it again by that phrase later even if you forgot its name. Each place is also enriched with hours, price level, photos, and ratings, which is what turns a bare pin into something you can actually decide on, and your map is cached for offline reading, so it is still there with no signal.
Plan: turning pins into a day-by-day route
When you are ready to build the actual trip, you pick a destination and your dates, anywhere from one to fourteen days, and set a pace (Chill, Balanced, or Packed) along with the vibes you are after, which shapes how much open time sits between stops versus how much ground each day tries to cover. Plotline builds the itinerary from the places you have already saved for that destination first, and fills any remaining gaps with recommendations, so a day is not left empty just because you only saved four places in a city you are visiting for three days.
Set your hotel as a home base and it is pinned on the map, with every day sequenced outward from it and the distance and travel time to each stop shown alongside it, so the plan is built around where you are actually sleeping rather than an abstract list. If there is a place you already know you are not skipping, like a reservation you made months ago, you can lock it as a must-see and the rest of the day gets arranged around it instead of the other way around. Every day gets an optimized route between its stops, not just a list in the order you happened to save them.
For a trip that is not planned in advance, Sidequests works differently on purpose: pick a vibe on the day itself, swipe through your own saves plus community gems nearby, and Plotline connects whatever you accept into a routed single-day plan. It is the spontaneous counterpart to the dated, multi-day planner, for the Saturday you decide at breakfast to actually go do something.
Share: planning it with the people coming with you
If the friend who sent you the mezcaleria Reel is coming on the trip, you add them to the plan as a collaborator, either as an editor or a viewer, each with its own separate invite link, and there is no cap on how many people can join. Editing happens live: if you are both looking at the plan at the same time, you see each other's changes as they happen, not after a refresh. Every stop carries a shared, editable note, and every stop shows who added it, so when a third friend drops a spot into day 2 later, it is clear where it came from.
Discover: finding places you have not saved yet
None of this requires you to have saved anything in advance. Point the map at a neighborhood in Oaxaca you have never searched before, and Trending shows what other travelers are currently saving in that exact area, both as pins and as a ranked list, with a saver count and the community's tip attached to each one. You can also follow specific public profiles: if a creator's saves have matched your taste before, following them means their new saves show up for you going forward instead of being a one-off video you happen to catch. Between Trending and following, a map that started completely empty for a destination still gives you somewhere real to start.
The whole pipeline, at a glance
| Stage | What happens | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Capture | Share a post, or DM a Reel to @plotline.app | Every named place extracted and geocoded, creator's tip attached |
| Organize | Each place is categorized and added to your map | A filterable, searchable map with hours, price, and ratings |
| Plan | Pick a destination, dates, pace, and vibe | A routed day-by-day itinerary anchored to your home base |
| Share | Invite collaborators as editor or viewer | Live co-editing, a note per stop, credit for who added it |
| Discover | Point the map anywhere | What other travelers are saving nearby, with their tips |
That is the complete path from a video someone sent you to a pin you can stand next to, and it is the same path whether the source is a Reel, a TikTok, a YouTube video, a blog post, or a list you already built in Google or Apple Maps. Nothing in it requires retyping an address by hand.
Frequently asked questions
How does Plotline work?
You share a post (TikTok, Reel, YouTube video, website, or a Google or Apple Maps list) or DM a Reel to @plotline.app, and Plotline extracts every place mentioned and pins it to your map with the creator's tip attached. From there you organize pins by category and collection, generate a routed day-by-day itinerary from a destination and dates, and share the plan with collaborators who can edit it live.
Can Plotline build a full day-by-day itinerary automatically?
Yes. Pick a destination and dates, from one to fourteen days, set a pace and the vibes you want, and Plotline sequences your saved places plus recommendations for any gaps into a day-by-day plan with an optimized route between stops. Setting a home base, like your hotel, anchors each day around it with distance and travel time shown per stop.
Does Plotline work with TikTok, or only Instagram?
Both, plus more. The share sheet accepts TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Google Maps lists, Apple Maps, and any website, including review sites like Yelp and Tripadvisor. Instagram also has a second path: once you connect your account, you can DM a Reel directly to @plotline.app, though that DM path covers Reels only, not carousels or slideshows.
Can I plan a trip with friends on Plotline?
Yes. You can invite collaborators to a trip as an editor or a viewer, each with a separate invite link, with no limit on how many people join. Edits happen live, every stop has a shared note anyone can update, and each stop shows who added it, so a group trip stays organized instead of scattered across a group chat.
Is Plotline available on Android?
Not yet. Plotline is currently iOS only, with an Android waitlist open for when it ships. The iOS app also does not currently handle flight or hotel booking, confirmation-email parsing, or expense splitting, and it is available in English only.
Related reading: How to Save Travel Reels Without Leaving Instagram, How to Plan a Trip With Friends in 2026 (Without the Group Chat Chaos), Four Months of Plotline: 1.6 Million Places, 236 Countries, and What Travelers Actually Save.