Stamp Hunt is an iPhone app that saves your travel memories as passport stamps, even when a country no longer stamps them. That is what made me build it.
Getting a passport stamped has always been one of the favorite parts of traveling. There is something deeply satisfying about arriving in a new country and leaving immigration with that rectangle of ink on paper.
The problem is that this tradition is dying, unfortunately. More and more countries are letting passport stamps disappear, either because of modernization or plain bureaucratic laziness, and the memory of those trips ends up sitting in some corner of the passport until it expires and goes into the inevitable transparent folder of documents that everyone has shoved into the back of a closet. That is why I created Stamp Hunt.
The core idea is simple: a place to save and collect the stamps from your trips. But “saving” here is not just a pretty photo album. The app has a stamp level system. The more evidence you give the app, the rarer and more elaborate the stamp you earn becomes.
Picked a country manually? Standard Stamp. Used GPS or scanned a boarding pass? You get a Common Stamp. Took a photo with geolocation? Here comes a special stamp called Snapshot. Took a photo of an ink stamp? That becomes a Rare Stamp in Stamp Hunt. If your ink stamp is combined with the location of the country you are in, even better: that earns a Legendary Stamp. And there is a special stamp combination that unlocks another level… but that one is still secret for now.
By the way, that boarding pass you scan to earn a Common Stamp holds far more than a flight number. I went down that rabbit hole separately, in case you are curious about what a boarding pass barcode actually reveals.
You do not need an account to use Stamp Hunt, but it is useful to have your name. You can also scan the NFC chip in your physical passport to import data directly, and even compare your collection with other users nearby. For people who already use travel tracking apps like Tripsy or Flighty, there is also an option to import flights from the files they generate.
What surprised me during development was realizing how much this touches something deeper than “travel technology”. People have an emotional relationship with these stamps. They are physical proof of experiences, and when countries stop offering them, part of that record disappears.
Stamp Hunt does not replace the dozens of stamps on a traveler’s passport pages, but at least it makes sure the memory of the trip does not disappear with them.
The app, Stamp Hunt, is already available, and the first 10 stamps are free. If you want to unlock the 11th and beyond, there is a free codes giveaway running on the site.
By the way, if you travel a lot around Brazil, there is also a Brazilian states version at stamphunt.app/brasil.
Travel usually leaves two extra chores behind: too many photos and too much group math. For the photo side, GalleryCheckup helps clear duplicates, screenshots, and blurry shots without deleting anything by surprise. For restaurants, hotels, and groceries with travel companions, FastBillSplit follows the same idea: handle the awkward part without making everyone create an account.