Sharing tours - as a private link or as an image for Instagram

Sharing doesn't automatically mean "posting publicly"

With Strava, Komoot and the like, sharing is usually tied to a social feed: anyone who wants to follow along needs an account, follows you, and everything you record flows into the same stream. That's handy when you're after the community feature - and annoying when you just want to show one person a single tour.

It makes more sense to keep sharing in your own hands, tour by tour. Sometimes a link to one person is enough, sometimes a nice image should go to your own Instagram - but not everything automatically and not for everyone.

Option 1: Sharing the tour as a private link

The simplest form: you generate a link for a tour and send it by WhatsApp, email or messenger. Whoever opens it sees the tour in a tidy view - with key figures, map, photos and your note. Three things should be in place here:

• No account needed. The recipient should simply be able to view the tour without signing up anywhere.
• Not guessable. The link should contain a long, random token - not just a counting number anyone could try their way through.
• Revocable. You should be able to invalidate the link again when the tour shouldn't be out in the open any more.

Option 2: The tour as an image for Instagram & co.

For Instagram, a story or a WhatsApp status, a link is impractical - there the image is what counts. Nicer is a ready-made image card: the route on the map, the key figures (date, distance, elevation gain), one or two photos and a discreet note of what it was created with.

The advantage over a quick screenshot: the image is deliberately designed for sharing, has a fixed format and looks tidy on your profile - instead of a lopsidedly cropped app screenshot. Through your phone's normal share menu it then lands in the app of your choice with a single tap.

How to share tours with Tourtagebuch

Both ways are built into Tourtagebuch - and both work without your tours landing in a public feed:

• Share a link: For every tour you can generate a link with an unpredictable token. The recipient sees the tour with map, route, photos and note - completely without their own account. You can invalidate the link again at any time.
• Share as an image: With a click, a ready-made image card of the tour appears - with a map section, key figures and photos - which you feed straight into the native share menu and post on Instagram, for example.
• You stay in control: Nothing is published automatically. You share each tour individually and deliberately - or not at all.

That fits the core idea behind Tourtagebuch: your data is yours, there's no pressure towards a public profile and no ads. For why pure tracking and social apps tick differently here, see the article What Strava can't do.

In short

Sharing a tour doesn't have to mean posting it publicly. A private link - no account for the recipient, not guessable, revocable - is enough to show someone a single tour. For your own social profile, a ready-designed image card is the better choice than a screenshot. Whoever decides both of these per tour shares on purpose, instead of tipping everything into a feed.