Trail Wallet alternatives
Trail Wallet is no longer available — its developers retired it, and the official page now says it "is no longer available and this page is for archival purposes only". The closest replacement depends on what you used it for: TravelSpend is the nearest match for a single trip on a daily budget, Stang is closer if you live across currencies year-round or need a day count per country, and Splitwise is the one to use if the point was splitting costs with other people.
If you are reading this, an app you relied on stopped working. Here is the short version of what happened, how to rescue your data, and what to move to — organised by what you actually used Trail Wallet for, because the replacements diverge sharply.
What happened to Trail Wallet
Trail Wallet was an iPhone and iPad app from Voyage Travel Apps — Simon Fairbairn and Erin McNeaney, who had been travelling full-time since 2010 and built it because three years of loose receipts and scribbled notes was not working. It was free for your first 25 entries and unlocked with a single purchase after that, and it earned a decade of recommendations by being unfashionably simple: a daily budget, fast entry, and a clear read on whether today was going well.
Its developers have since retired it. The official page for the app now states that it “is no longer available and this page is for archival purposes only”. There is no replacement product from the same team.
Plenty of “best travel apps” lists still recommend it. They are out of date.
Get your data out first
Do this before anything else, because the window is closing and it depends entirely on hardware you still control.
Trail Wallet stored data on the device, backed up automatically to iCloud, and could send a backup out by email or message. If the app is still installed and still opens:
- Open it and export a backup to yourself by email now, while it still runs.
- Keep that file somewhere that is not the phone.
- Only then wipe, sell, or upgrade the device.
If the app is already gone from your devices, there is no supported recovery path. The product has been withdrawn, and there is no service left to restore from. This is worth sitting with for a second when choosing what to replace it with: the reason your data is at risk is that it lived in one app, on one device, with no export you had already taken. Whatever you move to, take an export early and keep taking them.
Which replacement, based on what you used it for
You used it for one trip, against a daily budget
Use TravelSpend. It is the closest thing to Trail Wallet still being actively developed: a trip with a start and an end, a daily or total budget, expenses entered in local currency and converted automatically, and offline entry for when you have no signal. It also runs on Android, which Trail Wallet never did.
This is the right default for most former Trail Wallet users. One thing to know before you commit: a good deal sits behind TravelSpend Premium, including CSV export, custom exchange rates, unlimited active trips, and settling up debts within a group.
You used it because you live abroad, not because you were on a trip
A lot of Trail Wallet’s audience were not holidaymakers — they were long-term travellers and expats using a trip-shaped app because it was the best thing available. If that was you, the trip model was always a compromise.
Stang — the app we make, so check it against our pricing page rather than taking this at face value — is built for that case instead: a home currency plus as many other currencies as you spend in, converted at live rates, budgets that run monthly rather than per trip, and logging in a sentence like “lunch 350 THB”. It also does something Trail Wallet never did: Stays works out a running day count per country from where your expenses happen — no GPS, no check-ins — which is the number that decides a 90-day visa run or the 183-day tax residency rule.
Two honest caveats. Stays requires Pro. And Stang has no bill splitting at all — if that was part of why Trail Wallet worked for you, it is the wrong choice.
You used it to split costs with travel companions
Use Splitwise. It is built for exactly that: shared expenses, running balances between people, and settling up at the end. Neither Stang nor a pure budget tracker replaces it.
What you really miss is paying once
This is the most common complaint from people leaving Trail Wallet, and it is a fair one. It cost a single purchase and then nothing, forever. That model has largely vanished from this category.
The closest equivalents today: Stang offers a lifetime plan at $49.99 alongside $3.99/month and $19.99/year, and its free tier is not a trial — unlimited expenses, no history limit, multi-currency, budgets and CSV export, with 30 AI-parsed messages a month. TravelSpend uses in-app purchases rather than a pure subscription. Most other options are subscription-only.
The mapping, in one table
| What you used Trail Wallet for | Move to |
|---|---|
| A daily budget on one trip | TravelSpend |
| Tracking money while living abroad | Stang |
| Day counts for visas or tax residency | Stang (Stays, Pro, iPhone) |
| Splitting costs with other people | Splitwise |
| Paying once instead of monthly | Stang lifetime, or TravelSpend |
| Android, which Trail Wallet never supported | TravelSpend |
A fuller comparison of what is left in this category, including where each one is the wrong choice, is on the best travel expense apps.
Details here were checked in September 2026. Pricing in this category moves; confirm on the app’s own site before paying for anything.
