See it in action
Real screens, from a real trip
Features
Everything a group needs to actually stay together
Packbound isn't a general-purpose tracker - it's built around the one thing a travel group needs: knowing where everyone is, for exactly as long as the trip lasts.
No account needed
Sign in with just a display name. No email, no phone number, no password to lose.
Create or join a trip
Start a trip and invite people by a 6-character code, a QR code, or a direct link - whatever's easiest to share in the moment.
Live map
Everyone's position, heading, and speed on one shared map, with a clear signal status - live, weak, or lost - per person.
Background sharing
Keeps reporting your position while the app is minimized, with a one-tap toggle whenever you want to pause it.
Trip type, mode-aware
A car convoy on a road trip, a cycling group ride, a walking group, or travelling by train - pick a trip type and Packbound tunes the map's zoom, the quick-message presets, and the actual travel mode used for routes and ETAs.
Shared route & turn-by-turn
The trip owner sets a start point, destination, and stops. Every member gets their own live ETA - distance, duration, and estimated arrival time - plus turn-by-turn directions.
Trips can't run forever
Trips auto-expire after 24 hours (the owner can extend) or after 10 hours of inactivity, with warnings as the deadline approaches.
Quick messages & push-to-talk
One-tap preset messages relevant to your trip type - "Need fuel", "Missed the train" - or a tap-to-record voice clip, sent as an alert plus a push notification.
Low battery & lost-signal alerts
The group is notified if your battery gets critically low, or if your signal goes quiet - or if you've simply arrived.
Chase mode
Fell behind the plan? Switch to Chase mode and get live directions straight to wherever the trip owner currently is - or was last seen - instead of following the original stops.
Dark mode
The map and every screen follow your system theme, so a night drive doesn't mean a blinding white screen.
How it works
From "let's go" to "we made it" in four steps
Start a trip
Pick a display name, name the trip, and choose how you're travelling.
Bring your pack
Share the invite code, a QR code, or a link - whoever joins shows up on the map instantly.
Share the route
The owner sets a destination and any stops; everyone gets their own live ETA and turn-by-turn directions.
Trip ends, data goes
End it manually, let it go quiet, or hit the 24h cap - either way, location history is wiped immediately.
Privacy
Built to know as little about you as possible
Location sharing only works if people trust it. Packbound is built so there's as little to trust with as possible - here's exactly what happens to your data, not just a promise.
No account, no personal details
Sign-in is anonymous - Packbound never asks for an email address, phone number, or password. The only thing you provide is a display name, which is only ever visible to people in your own trip.
Location is shared, not broadcast
Your live position is only ever visible to the other members of the specific trip you're on - never to other Packbound users, and never to us for any purpose beyond making the app work.
Deleted the moment the trip ends
Whether the owner ends the trip, it goes quiet, or it hits the 24-hour hard cap, location history is deleted immediately - not "eventually," not "on the next cleanup run."
Trip details don't linger either
Basic trip info (its name, who was in it) sticks around for 30 days after a trip ends, in case you want to look back - then it's permanently purged too. Nothing is kept indefinitely.
No ads, no analytics, nothing sold
There's no advertising SDK, no analytics or tracking library, and no third party this data is ever sold or handed to. The app simply doesn't include that code.
Open about all of it
Packbound's source code is public on GitHub. Rather than take our word for any of this, you can read the actual code that handles your location data yourself.
Packbound runs on Firebase (Google Cloud) for accounts, live sync, and push notifications, and the Google Maps Platform for maps and routing - both process data only as needed to run the app. See the full privacy policy for details, or browse the source yourself.
Questions
Common questions
Is Packbound just for cars, or can I use it for cycling, walking, or train trips too?
All four. Pick a trip type - Car, Train, Bicycle, or Walk - when you start a trip, and Packbound tunes the map, routing, and quick messages to match, whether that's a car convoy on a road trip, a group bike ride, a walking group, or travelling together by train.
Is this a convoy tracker for road trips?
Yes - that's exactly the use case it was built for: knowing where every car in your convoy is, in real time, without anyone needing to call or text while driving. The same map, route, and ETA setup works identically for any group travelling together, not just convoys of cars.
How is this different from Find My Friends or Life360?
Packbound is built around a single trip rather than continuous tracking. There's no account and no persistent profile beyond a display name, and your location history disappears the moment the trip ends rather than being retained indefinitely.
Do I need to create an account?
No. Sign in with just a display name - no email, phone number, or password.
What happens to my location data after the trip?
It's deleted the instant the trip ends. Trip metadata (its name and who was in it) is kept for 30 days in case you want to look back on it, then permanently deleted - see the privacy policy for the full picture.
Keep your pack together, then let the data go.
Free, no account required, and built so there's nothing left behind once the trip's over.