Field Notes · Build in public

A shared trip opens in full, with no sign-in

A friend can open your link and read the whole route as soon as the page opens.

By Olga — founder · · 2 min read

A narrow street in Barcelona's Raval, tall flats with green balconies, a lamp and a wall sign reading "Carrer de l'Arc del Teatre"
Xavier Badia Castellà / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Send your friend a trip link. Every stop is there as soon as the page opens.

You can share a whole trip with someone who has no account. They can read every stop, find its address, see what time of day it suits and understand why it belongs on the route.

Open the Barcelona trip to see what your friend gets. It is a three-day route through the city from The Shadow of the Wind. One stop is Carrer de Santa Anna, where the novel puts the Sempere & Sons bookshop. The address comes with the reason to go, so your friend can follow the connection to the book without you explaining it in a separate message.

Two changes made sharing work this way. Since October 16, the stops have been there from the moment the page opens. Your friend can start reading while the rest of the page finishes loading.

The other change was a sentence at the end. Until October 12, the last card told readers to sign in to “explore any book”. Searching for a book no longer needed an account, but that old instruction was still there.

The card now reads “Want to plan your own trip? Sign in to save stops and customise this itinerary.” If you are already signed in, it no longer asks you to sign in again. I checked the shared trip while signed out on October 26.

At the top, “Copy link” lets your friend pass the trip on. “Plan from this book →” starts their own search for the same book, without an account. They can read the shared route before deciding whether to make changes. When they want to save a trip or change its stops, they will need a free account.