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Signing in as a friend

What a friend link does, what it lets you see, and how to tell whether you are signed in on this device.

A friend of the site sends you a link. Tapping it signs you in on that device for a year and lands you on whatever they were sharing — there is nothing to type and no account to make. The link carries the friend password inside it, so treat it the way you would a password: fine to keep, not for posting anywhere public.

If you would rather sign in by hand, the door is at traveller.org/friends/ — it asks for the friend password once.

What changes once you are in

  • A slim purple band across the very top of every page reads Signed in as a friend. If you do not see it, you are not signed in on this device.
  • Unlisted albums appear in their country’s timeline, in their year’s place, each carded ⊘ Unlisted · visible to friends. They also gather on the Photographs page, below the public albums.
  • Friends-only photographs inside public albums appear in their true places in the grid and the filmstrip, each with a small purple flag reading Friends Only — Not in Public View so you always know which pictures the public page does not show.
  • On a country page, an album that carries friends-only photographs shows a purple ⊘ N friends-only chip under its count. Read the two numbers together: “21 photographs · ⊘ 8 friends-only” is an album of 29 that the public sees 21 of.

Sharing onward

Open an unlisted album, or a public one with friends-only photographs in it, and the purple bar at the top offers Share with a friend. On a phone it opens the share sheet straight into Messages; on a computer it copies a link. The link signs the next person in the same way yours did.

If the hidden things are not showing

Look for the purple band at the top. No band means this device is not signed in — the link only works on the device it was tapped on, so a link opened on your phone does nothing for your laptop. Tap the link again on the device you are using, or sign in at traveller.org/friends/.

If the band is there but an album seems short, pull down to refresh: pages you had open before signing in can show their public version until they are reloaded.