Pin My Map is a private map of the people you know. It is worth saying plainly: a map with four people on it does not do a lot for you. A map with sixty does.
Every friend who joins is one more city you have a person in. One more set of recommendations you can trust. One more chance to find out someone is in town before they leave.
So this post is the practical one. These are the ways people actually get their friends onto Pin My Map. Some take ten seconds. Some others add thirty people in an evening.
Your profile link is the whole trick
Every Pin My Map account has a link: pinmymap.link/p/yourusername. Anyone who opens it lands on your profile and can join from there. You will find it under Share in the app, next to a Copy button.
Almost everything below is a different place to put that one link. Copy it once and keep it somewhere you can paste from.
Put it in your social bios
This is the highest-value thing you can do, and it takes a minute. Your Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp and Facebook bios are already read by exactly the people you want on your map.
- Instagram: add the link to your bio, or into your link-in-bio tool alongside everything else.
- TikTok: the bio link field works the same way, and travel content is where people are most curious about where you have been.
- WhatsApp: your About text takes a link. Everyone who opens your contact sees it.
- Facebook: the Intro section on your profile, or a pinned post if you want it seen once by everybody.
A line of context helps more than the bare link. Something like: Pin my map, see where I have been and ask me anything.
Post a story every time you travel somewhere new
There are a few posts worth making around a trip. Each one gives people a reason to open your map.
- A few months before you go: "I will be in Abu Dhabi in March. Who is around, or who has been?" Then your link.
- Already on the plane: "Spontaneously heading to Abu Dhabi. Who is around, or who has been?" Then your link.
- Just back: "Morocco was so much fun. Tips are all on my map." Then your link.
- No trip booked at all: "I never remember which of my friends have been where, so I put it on a map. Add yours." Then your link.
Pin My Map has a built-in story share for exactly this. Open Share in the app, pick the Instagram or TikTok tab, and it builds an image of your map with your profile link already copied.
Post it when you land somewhere. That is the moment people are most interested, because they are already watching your trip. Two or three friends join off a single story, and it costs you nothing you were not already posting.
Use the QR code when you are with people
The Share screen has a QR tab. It shows a code pointing at your profile. Someone scans it with their camera and they are on your map in seconds. No typing, no spelling your username out, no handing over your phone.
This is the one that adds people in bulk, because it works in the exact situations where you meet a lot of people at once.
- Hostels. The common room at 9pm is the single best place to use it.
- Surf camps, yoga schools, language courses and training courses, where you spend a week with the same eight people and then everyone flies home.
- Goodbye parties at the end of an Erasmus year, a semester abroad, or a youth exchange. Do it on the last night, while everybody is still in one room.
- Networking events and conferences, where swapping a map is more memorable than swapping a LinkedIn.
- Weddings, reunions and festivals, where people you have not seen in years are all standing together.
Send it as a link in the places you already chat
Paste your Pin My Map link into a WhatsApp group, an Instagram DM, or a Telegram chat. Group chats are the efficient version, because one message reaches everyone who was on the trip.
The best time to send it is the day after something ends. A trip, a course, a season. The group chat is still alive and everyone is still slightly sad it is over.
Ask, instead of only sharing
Message the friend who lived in Mexico City and ask where you should stay. That one question can turn into a free place to stay, or a local who shows you around for a day.
Then tell them to join Pin My Map, so they can do the same when they are near your town. That lands far better than "you should try this app", because you are asking for what they know and offering them the same back.
Help us help you
Pin My Map is still a growing social travel app. Post about the reunion it got you, or the recommendation nobody else had. That is how the next wave of people find us.
Hope this helped. See you around! 🌍
