Animated maps
What it makes
An animated map is a flat map that draws your route as the video plays. The icon for how you travelled moves along the line, your stops are named as you reach them, and each country's flag and name come up as you cross into it. If your route file has heights in it, a height profile fills in along the bottom. It isn't a flyby film, which flies over a 3D map. Make one at www.pebbls.com/animated-travel-map. It runs in the browser on a phone or a computer, and you don't need an account.
How to make one
- Add your route. Type the places in order, draw it on the map, upload a route file from another app, or pick one of your Pebbls journeys (sign in first; its photos come too, which makes it a Premium animation). Most apps, such as Strava, Komoot or Garmin, let you download a trip as a file called a GPX file; KML, KMZ, TCX and GeoJSON files and Polarsteps exports work too
- Say how you travelled between each pair of places: bike, foot, car, ferry and so on
- Choose a map style, a shape and a title. The preview plays while you work on it
- Make the video. It usually takes a few minutes, longer when it's busy, and we email you a link to download it
Shapes
- Wide (16:9) for YouTube and slideshows
- Tall (9:16) for Reels, TikTok and Shorts
- Square (1:1) for Instagram and Facebook posts
Free animations
- Full HD video, up to 30 seconds long
- Up to 10 stops, on a route of any length
- The Vintage and Minimal map styles, in all three shapes
- A small Pebbls mark in the corner
- No account needed
Premium animations
Premium costs one credit per animation. Changing it and making it again after that costs nothing.
- Your photos on the map, up to three at each stop
- Up to 3 minutes long, with up to 60 stops
- 4K, and 60 frames a second
- The Night and Outdoors map styles
- A green-screen or a transparent-background version, for laying your route over your own footage in a video editor (make it again, free, for the other)
- One animation per chapter, for a series
- No Pebbls mark, and your own logo if you want one
Credits
Every account gets one free credit. Explorer members get 12 credits for each paid year of membership (not during a free trial), and anyone signed in can buy 6 at a time; bought credits don't expire. They're the same credits as Route to video films use, so one balance covers both. You need to be signed in to use one.
How long we keep it
We keep each video for 24 hours after it's ready and then delete it, so download it straight away. If you're signed in, your map stays in your account and you can make the video again whenever you like, at no extra cost. Without an account, the map is deleted along with the video, and a map you never turned into a video is deleted 30 days after you last changed it.