📍 GPS Trail
The GPS Trail records a breadcrumb path of everywhere you walk during your park day — entirely on your device, with no data sent to any server. After your trip, sync the trail to the web planner to watch an animated playback of your day on an interactive map.
▶️ Starting the Trail
Set up and begin recording before you enter the park.
Once a day has a trail, the pill shows its distance (for example "Trail · 1.2 mi") and tapping it opens that day's trail sheet instead. If you don't see the pill, make sure you're on the Home screen (not Rides or Dining).
Medium is recommended for a full park day — it records a point roughly every minute while you're moving, balancing accuracy and battery life.
Tip
"Always" lets the trail keep recording while your phone is locked or you're in another app — with "While Using" alone it would stop whenever you switch apps to check something. If you chose "Keep Only While Using", Pal says it needs Always location: tap Open Settings and choose Always under Location, then Try Again.
Tip
Tap the pill to open the trail sheet: your route so far on an Apple Maps map, with the distance, time, points, when you started, and when the last point arrived.
🎢 During Your Park Day
Trail recording runs fully in the background — just enjoy your day.
Recording continues while you use any part of the app, while your phone is locked, and while you're in another app. When you come back, the pill's points and time have caught up.
A break is useful during long sit-down meals or shows where you won't be moving.
Tip
⏹️ Stopping and Exporting Your Trail
At the end of your day, stop recording and export the trail data to the web planner.
Stats shown: total distance (miles), total time, number of GPS points recorded, and when you started. Reopen the sheet from the pill any time that day.
Set the date range to include today (or all your trip days if you recorded multiple days).
Tip
🗺️ Viewing Your Trail in the Web Planner
Import your sync file and explore the animated map in the Publish phase.
See the Data Sync guide for full import instructions if this is your first time.
Each day you recorded appears as a card showing distance, time, and points. Tap a card to expand the map.
Completed itinerary items (rides, shows, dining, places) appear as colour-coded dots on the map. Hover over a dot to see the item name and scheduled time.
Tip
▶️ Animated Playback Controls
Watch your day unfold step by step on the map.
A ghost trail (20% opacity) shows your full route at all times. The active portion draws in at full opacity as the dot advances.
10× is useful for a quick overview of the whole day. 1× gives the most satisfying recreation of the actual pace of your visit.
Tip
Fullscreen mode is especially useful on a large monitor for sharing your trail during a trip recap conversation.
💡 Tips for best results
- Charge your phone fully the night before — background location recording uses extra battery on long days.
- Start recording before you enter the park so the entrance plaza is captured.
- Use Medium resolution for a typical 8–12 hour park day. Switch to High only if you want precise per-attraction paths.
- If the trail sheet says the last point arrived a long time ago, tap Stop Recording and then Resume Recording — iOS may have paused the background task.
- Trail points are stored locally by date. You can record multiple trip days and they'll each appear as separate cards in the web planner.
- The trail is private — it never leaves your device unless you export and share the sync file, or turn on Cloud Sync, which stores it end-to-end encrypted so only you and the people on your trip can see it.