Your trips, without the tracking.

What happened in September 2026

On 5 September 2026 the Dutch investigative outlet Follow the Money reported that Polarsteps’ API could be queried at scale by anyone. It described access to 23 million user profiles, 230 million photos and videos and more than a billion location points, including followers-only trips on the millions of accounts that accepted new followers automatically. Reporters used it to trace serving soldiers to their bases. The Dutch Ministry of Defence then added Polarsteps to the apps banned on defence devices.

Polarsteps’ position is that no data breach took place: no authentication was bypassed, no passwords were exposed, and private trips stayed private. It has since tightened API controls and rate limits, expired old secret links, and reset profiles so new followers need approval.

We are not writing this to pile on. Polarsteps responded and fixed things, and its CEO said plainly that the company should have found the problem itself. The point is structural, and it applies to every app of this kind.

The structural difference

A travel app that tracks you by GPS and syncs to a server holds a precise map of where you have been, sometimes down to the metre. Keeping that safe depends on every API endpoint getting access control right, every time, for millions of users.

Stadu takes that risk off the table by not holding the data at all. It has no server of its own and no accounts. It does not ask for location permission. Your trips are stops you typed in, and they are stored on your phone.

To be precise about the remaining traffic: showing the map, routing between stops and searching for places sends requests to Mapbox, the map provider, as any map app does. There is no profile anywhere that collects your trips, and nothing to scrape.

Where Polarsteps is simply better

Automatic tracking is the big one. Polarsteps records your route in the background while you travel, even offline, and the trip builds itself. Stadu cannot do that; you add the stops yourself.

Polarsteps also lets family follow along live, turns a trip into a video with Trip Reels, prints hardback travel books and helps you plan an itinerary. Stadu has none of those. If those are why you use Polarsteps, stay.

The 3D replay is free here

Polarsteps puts its 3D maps, elevation profiles and Play mode, which replays a route across the terrain, into Polarsteps Plus.

In Stadu, the 3D replay is part of the free app: a chase camera follows a 3D car, train, plane or ferry along each leg, with standard, dark and satellite map styles, a globe for long flights, and your photos appearing at each stop. It plays inside the app and does not export a video file, but every control fades out so a screen recording comes out clean.

Moving your trips over

There is no Polarsteps importer, so trips are added by entering their stops. For most trips that is a few minutes: search each place, set the dates, pick how you travelled between them, and add photos from your gallery.

Many people keep both: Polarsteps while they are on the road, and Stadu for the long-term record that sits next to the rest of their life.