How it works

Your trip map: save places by category, with photos and links

In Kokai every trip has a map with your places: you search for them by name or tap where they are, and each one carries its category’s colour and icon, its priority and, without you asking, photos and links from Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons with their author and licence. The base map comes from OpenStreetMap and is drawn in paper tones, so the only colour is that of your places. Your places are saved on the device; the background map, search and photos need a connection.

Reviewed on September 17, 2026 18 min read

In a nutshell

Categories: Seven: accommodation, food, sightseeing, nature, leisure and transport, each with its own colour and icon, plus practical, with an icon and no colour.
Adding a place: By searching for its name (from 3 letters, up to 8 results) or with «Añadir tocando el mapa» (“Add by tapping the map”). You can drag the marker to correct it.
Priority: Must-see, If there’s time (the default for a new place) or Maybe.
Photos: Up to 8 shown per place, from Wikimedia Commons with author and licence, and on mobile the cover image of its official website. A photo that isn’t from there gets dismissed and doesn’t come back.
Map data: OpenStreetMap. Searching for places: Photon. Locating the trip’s destination: Nominatim, at most one request per second.
Themes: System, Light, Dark and Outdoor (more contrast, for reading in full sun). The map changes with the app.
Offline: Your places, their cards and their notes: yes. The background map, search and photos: no. Offline maps are still pending.

The map is paper; the colour belongs to your places

Open a trip and tap Mapa (“Map”) in the bar: the map fills the screen and, alongside it on a computer or below it on a phone, there’s the list of your places with its search box. Tapping a place opens its card in that same panel.

The background map has no colours of its own. Land, water, parks and streets are drawn in map-paper and ink tones, and the only coloured things left on top are yours: the markers of your places, the line of a day’s route and the route recorded in On the road. So when something has colour, it means something.

Colour never goes alone. Each marker carries its category’s icon and, on screens wider than 600 px, its name underneath. On a phone you only see the icon, except for the place you have open: with twenty names on top, a 390 px map is unreadable.

The markers are real buttons: you can move through them with the keyboard, they measure 44 px so you can tap them with a finger, and the screen reader announces their name and category.

The seven categories

Each place belongs to one category, and the category decides its colour, its icon and the radius suggested for the alert when you pass nearby. They’re fixed: to group places another way (“good with kids”, “at night”) there are tags.

Category	Icon and colour	What usually goes in	Alert radius
Accommodation	A bed, in indigo blue	Hotels, hostels, guesthouses, apartments, campsites	150 m
Food	Cutlery, in red	Restaurants, cafés, bars, ice cream shops, bakeries and pastry shops	100 m
Sightseeing	A building with columns, in brown	Monuments, museums, galleries, viewpoints, places of worship	150 m
Nature	A mountain with a sun, in green	Parks, gardens, nature reserves, beaches and natural spots	300 m
Leisure	A ticket, in magenta	Theatres, cinemas, shops, stadiums, zoos, aquariums, theme parks	100 m
Transport	A train, in blue	Stations, airports, ferry terminals, car or bike hire, car parks	400 m
Practical	A lifebuoy, no colour	Everything else: a pharmacy, a cash machine, a consulate	100 m

Practical has no colour on purpose. Whatever doesn’t fit any other category goes there, in grey: better an honest grey than a colour that says something it isn’t. The AI’s purple isn’t a category either: it marks what the AI has suggested and you haven’t accepted yet, with a dashed border.

Six colours and a grey isn’t a random number. The colours were chosen by measuring every pair at once, also as a person with protanopia or deuteranopia sees them, and seven is the most that can be kept apart that way. A hotel doesn’t change colour when you switch to dark: it only gets lighter so it can be read on the night background.

Adding places: search, tap the map and drag

There are three ways for a place to reach the map, because there are three ways you come across places: you know what it’s called, you know where it is, or the AI suggests it.

Search by name: Type in «Buscar un lugar para añadirlo…» (“Search for a place to add it…”). The search starts from 3 letters, once you stop typing, and shows up to 8 results, biased towards the area you’re looking at on the map (or towards the trip’s destination, if you haven’t moved it yet): “cathedral” on a trip to Seville is Seville’s. When you pick one, «Guardar este lugar» (“Save this place”) appears with the name and category already filled in.
Tap the map: Press «Añadir tocando el mapa» (“Add by tapping the map”) and tap where the place is. «Sitio nuevo» (“New place”) appears with its coordinates: give it a name, choose the category (it suggests Sightseeing) and press «Guardar el sitio» (“Save the place”). It’s for things that have no name on any map: a bench with a view, the back door of a market.
Accept an AI suggestion: From an interest or from the AI plan. It comes in with its location marked as approximate (see below).

When you save a place you searched for, its category comes from how OpenStreetMap tags it: what is a museum there comes in as Sightseeing; a restaurant or a pastry shop, as Food. If you don’t agree, change it on the card. In both forms you can already tick «Avisarme cuando pase cerca, con el viaje en ruta» (“Alert me when I pass nearby, with the trip on the road”).

To correct where it is, open the place’s card: its marker can be dragged to the exact spot and is saved when you let go. Only the open place can be dragged, so that moving the map with your finger doesn’t shift markers by accident.

Each place’s card

Everything on the card saves itself, half a second after you stop typing. There’s no save button: on a phone, with your other hand busy, a save button is lost data.

Priority: «Imprescindible» (“Must-see”), «Si hay tiempo» (“If there’s time”) or «Quizás» (“Maybe”). A new place comes in as «Si hay tiempo». Must-sees say so in the list, and the AI plan starts with them.
«Marcar visitado» (“Mark as visited”) and «Cómo llegar» (“Directions”), which opens the route to that point in Google Maps.
Notes, with «Proponer» (“Suggest”) so the AI can suggest what to order or what time to go.
«Avisarme al pasar cerca» (“Alert me when I pass nearby”), with «A qué distancia» (“How far”, from 75 to 1,000 m): On the road explains it.
«En el plan» (“In the plan”) and «Añadir al plan» (“Add to plan”), to put it on a day or in «Sin fecha» (“Undated”).
«Dirección, horario, precio y contacto» (“Address, opening hours, price and contact”), tags, linked documents and, for accommodation, «Noches aquí» (“Nights here”, see Accommodation).
«Preguntar a la IA por este sitio» (“Ask the AI about this place”), which opens an interest about its surroundings.

Deleting a place also removes it from the days of the plan it was on. Linked documents aren’t deleted.

Filters, list and map tools

With lots of places saved, this is how the map gets organised:

By category: above the list there’s a pill for each category that has at least one place. Tapping one leaves only that one; tapping another adds it. With none selected, you see everything.
By tag: when you pick several tags, you get the places that have all of them.
The list says how many places you’re seeing (“12 of 40”) and, for each one, whether it’s a must-see, whether it’s visited or has an alert, and its address.
«Dónde estoy» (“Where am I”) centres the map on your position and, from then on, the list is sorted by distance and shows how far away each place is.
«Ver todos los sitios» (“See all places”) fits the map so they all fit.
If you’ve recorded routes on the road, «Ver el recorrido» (“Show the route”) and «Ocultar el recorrido» (“Hide the route”) show or hide them.

Places with an alert have the circle of their radius drawn around them, so you can see at a glance whether two alerts overlap. The map view (where you’re looking and how zoomed in) is remembered on each device: your phone can be looking at the neighbourhood while your laptop shows the whole city.

From the plan, a day’s “Map” button opens this same map with only that day’s places and the line joining them in order.

Photos and links, without looking for them yourself

Every new place goes looking for its photos and links without you asking. Meanwhile, the card says «Buscando fotos y enlaces…» (“Looking for photos and links…”). Open sources are queried in order of trust, and one that fails doesn’t bring down the rest:

If the place came from search, its OpenStreetMap tags, which often give its Wikidata item, its Wikipedia article, its website and sometimes its photo.
If not, the matching Wikipedia article: first by proximity to its coordinates, with a radius that depends on the category, and then by name, a little further away. First in the app’s language and, if there isn’t one, in English.
Its Wikidata item: the main photo, the official website, the Commons category and the links to Wikipedia and Wikivoyage.
The photos in that Wikimedia Commons category.
The cover image of its official website. This only happens in the mobile app (on the way to the stores): in the browser and on the computer, security rules don’t allow reading a website on another domain without going through a server, and Kokai doesn’t route it through its own. The website address does appear everywhere, as a link.
If there are still fewer than 3 photos, Commons photos taken nearby (within 150 m, or 1,500 m for nature) whose title resembles the place’s name.

Images that aren’t photos of the place are dismissed automatically: logos, location maps, coats of arms, flags, plans and diagrams, formats that aren’t photographs and anything under 400 px wide. At most 8 photos are shown per place.

Every Wikimedia photo shows, in the viewer, its author and its licence (“Photo: author · licence · Wikimedia Commons”) and the link to the file page, which is what their free licences require. Photos aren’t copied into Kokai: they’re shown linked from their source.

Anything that isn’t from there gets dismissed: with the X on the strip, «Descartar esta foto» (“Dismiss this photo”), or with «No es de aquí» (“Not from here”) in the viewer. Dismissed photos aren’t deleted, they stay marked, and that’s why the next search doesn’t bring back the same photo of the square next door. Dismissed photos are shown separately and can be restored with «Recuperar esta foto» (“Restore this photo”). «Buscar más» (“Find more”) asks the sources again.

The links appear on the card with their type: the website, Wikipedia, Wikivoyage and “Photos on Wikimedia Commons”. You add them by hand with «Añadir un enlace: reserva, reseña, vídeo…» (“Add a link: booking, review, video…”) and remove them with «Quitar el enlace» (“Remove the link”).

If there’s no connection when you create the place, the card says «No se han podido buscar las fotos. ¿Hay conexión?» (“The photos couldn’t be searched for. Are you connected?”), and the search runs again the next time you open its card. At most two places are searched at a time and each search is cut off after 45 seconds: accepting a plan with thirty new places doesn’t overload Wikimedia.

The trip’s destination, located on the map

When you create a trip you type its Destino (“Destination”) the way you’d say it: “Iceland”, “Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka”, “Lisbon and Sintra”. Kokai looks it up on the map and, under the field, says what it found. With that:

the trip’s map, the map for its interests and the one for the AI plan already open there, even if you don’t have any places yet;
search is biased towards that area;
the AI knows which trip you’re talking about;
the trip summary has the destination on the map, with your places, as its cover;
and the trip appears on the map of all your trips.

What answers here is Nominatim, OpenStreetMap’s geocoder, and not Photon, the one behind place search: Nominatim knows country and city names in Spanish. Its usage policy doesn’t allow searching as you type and asks for at most one request per second, so Kokai asks just once, when you leave the field or save, and in a queue.

A “city” whose box reaches faraway islands is trimmed to 40 km from its point; a county, an island or an archipelago, to 200 km; a region or a country, to 1,500 km. If nothing is found, it says so («No lo encuentro en el mapa. Prueba con una ciudad, una isla, una región o un país.», “I can’t find it on the map. Try a city, an island, a region or a country.”), and if there’s no connection, it tries again later. Trips created before this existed locate themselves when you open «Tus viajes» (“Your trips”).

The map of all your trips

In «Tus viajes» (“Your trips”), above the list (grouped into Now, Upcoming, Undated ideas and Past trips), there’s a map with a suitcase for each located trip, at its destination’s point and with its name. Upcoming trips and the one in progress are in colour; undated ideas and past trips are neutral. Tapping a suitcase opens that trip’s summary.

A trip without a destination doesn’t appear on the map, and the note below says so. This map, like the one on the summary’s cover, sits inside a page that scrolls: you move it with two fingers, or with Ctrl and the mouse wheel, so it doesn’t trap the page’s scrolling.

Light, dark and outdoor

In Settings, «Tema» (“Theme”) has four options, and the base map is redrawn with each one without reloading:

Theme	What the app says	What it’s for
System («Como el sistema»)	Light by day and dark at night, if your system switches on its own.	It’s the default option.
Light («Claro»)	Ink on map paper.	Planning at home or at the office.
Dark («Oscuro»)	For looking at the map at night without being dazzled.	Finding the hotel on the way out of a concert.
Outdoor («Exterior»)	More contrast, for reading the screen in full sun.	A town square in August. Water and parks gain colour instead of getting darker, because the sun’s glare flattens lightness before it flattens hue.

In all three themes, the names on the map have a contrast of at least 4.5:1 against land, parks and water, and each category, the route and the recorded route, 3:1: the WCAG thresholds for text and for graphical elements.

Why OpenStreetMap and not Google Maps

Google Maps is a good map, and each place’s «Cómo llegar» (“Directions”) button opens it to guide you. But the map inside Kokai, the one that holds your places, is OpenStreetMap, for reasons you notice when you use it:

What matters to you	With OpenStreetMap	With Google Maps Platform data
Saving a place for six months from now	Its data has an open licence (ODbL): the name and coordinates you save can be kept with no expiry date.	Its terms don’t allow storing a place’s content beyond specific exceptions (the place ID, yes).
Offline maps, when they arrive	The tiles for a whole area can be generated and served to carry on your phone.	Its terms don’t allow pre-fetching or storing its content to use later.
The look of the map	It’s drawn in Kokai’s colours, so the only colour is that of your places.	Its terms restrict showing its place results on a map that isn’t Google’s, with rules of their own in the European Economic Area.

The pieces, today: the tiles (the pieces of map) come from OpenFreeMap, with the OpenMapTiles schema, and are drawn with MapLibre GL, which is open source; place search is Photon, by komoot, which searches OpenStreetMap as you type; the destination is located by Nominatim. The plan for launch is to serve the map from Kokai’s own server, in a single PMTiles file generated with Planetiler, with no third parties. Our own search service is still pending.

The attribution is always visible. The OpenStreetMap licence (ODbL) requires saying where the data comes from, which is why the corner of the map has the link to “OpenStreetMap”, to OpenMapTiles and to the tile provider. It can’t be removed.

What the AI suggests comes with an approximate location

A language model knows that the Miradouro da Senhora do Monte is in Lisbon, but its coordinates may land a street or a neighbourhood away. That’s why a place accepted from the AI comes in marked as an approximate location, and its card warns you (in the app’s Spanish; in English, “The location came from the AI and may be off. Drag the marker to the exact spot or confirm it.”):

La ubicación la dio la IA y puede estar desplazada. Arrastra el marcador al sitio exacto o confírmala.

Dragging the marker or pressing «Está bien» (“That’s right”) removes the mark. While it has it, the photo search is more cautious: it looks for its Wikipedia article within a radius four times larger (up to 10 km) and doesn’t look for Commons photos around that point, which may be wrong (it does around its article, if it finds one).

When you save an AI plan, a new place with the same name as one of yours and less than 1 km away is treated as the same one: it isn’t duplicated. The plan explains it.

What needs a connection

	Offline	Why
Your places, their cards, notes, priorities and alerts	Yes	They’re saved on the device.
The list of places, filters and distances	Yes	They’re worked out on the device.
The background map	No: it shows up blank	Tiles are requested from the map server. Offline maps by area are still pending.
Searching for a place	No	It asks Photon, which searches OpenStreetMap.
Locating the destination	No	It asks Nominatim; it tries again when the connection comes back.
Photos and links	No	They’re searched for and shown from their source; a place created offline looks for them when you open its card.

What you do have offline during the trip, besides your places: proximity alerts and the address of that night’s accommodation, in On the road.

Check it yourself

You don’t have to take any of this on trust: these are the steps to see it in the app with your own eyes.

In «Tus viajes» (“Your trips”), press «Nuevo viaje» (“New trip”) and type “Lisboa y Sintra” in «Destino» (“Destination”). When you leave the field, underneath you read «En el mapa: …» (“On the map: …”) with what it found. Press «Crear el viaje» (“Create the trip”).
Go to «Mapa» (“Map”): it already opens over Lisbon and Sintra. Type “Torre de Belém” in «Buscar un lugar para añadirlo…» (“Search for a place to add it…”), choose the result and press «Guardar el sitio» (“Save the place”).
The card shows «Buscando fotos y enlaces…» (“Looking for photos and links…”) and, shortly after, the photos. Open one: the author and licence are underneath. If one isn’t from there, press «No es de aquí» (“Not from here”).
Change «Prioridad» (“Priority”) to «Imprescindible» (“Must-see”) and go back with «Volver a la lista» (“Back to the list”): the place says so in the list.
Press «Añadir tocando el mapa» (“Add by tapping the map”), tap a point, give it a name and press «Guardar el sitio». With its card open, drag the marker and drop it somewhere else.
Tap a category pill above the list to filter. Then, in Settings, «Tema» (“Theme”), choose «Exterior» (“Outdoor”) and go back to the map.

Open the app

Frequently asked questions

Why can’t search find a place?

It searches from 3 letters and only what’s in OpenStreetMap. Try the name as it appears at the place itself (in Portuguese, “Mosteiro dos Jerónimos”), move the map to that area first, because results are sorted by proximity, or add it with «Añadir tocando el mapa» (“Add by tapping the map”). You can’t search offline.

Do the photos take up space on my phone?

No: Kokai stores where each photo comes from, with its author and licence, and shows it linked from Wikimedia Commons or from the place’s website. That’s why photos don’t show offline.

Can I create categories or change their colours?

No. There are seven, with colours measured so they can be told apart, also with colour blindness. To group places your own way, use tags, which also filter the map.

What is sent to the map services?

To Photon, what you type in search and the centre of the map; to Nominatim, the name of the destination; to Wikipedia, Wikidata, Commons and OpenStreetMap, each place’s name and coordinates to look for its photos; to the tile server, the area you’re looking at. Never your account or your notes. More in Your data.

Sources and references

The original documentation for what is cited here, checked on this page’s review date.

OpenStreetMap copyright and licence OpenStreetMap Foundation
Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0 Open Data Commons
Nominatim Usage Policy OpenStreetMap Foundation
Photon, a geocoder for OpenStreetMap komoot
Commons:Licensing Wikimedia Commons
Wikidata: introduction Wikidata
OpenFreeMap OpenFreeMap
Places API policies (storage and display) Google for Developers

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