TRAVEL BAUSE
The Field Guide
How the app works, in plain terms. If something here does not match what you are seeing, the app is right and this page is behind: tell us and we will fix it the same day.
Starting out
What do I do first?
Complete your profile: your name and your home city, on Profile. It takes a few seconds and it matters more than it looks. Profile completion is what activates your founding mark, starts your ladder at +10 Bause Cred, and credits whoever invited you.
What's a Builder?
Builders are the first thousand members: the people filling the atlas while it's still being written, whose photos and field notes land on the property cards everyone reads later. If you joined in the first thousand you are one, whether you arrived by invitation or found us on your own. Your ★ says you were here while the atlas was still being written, and it never comes off.
Someone invited me. Do they get anything?
They earn +25 Bause Cred when you complete your profile, and +10 more when you make your first post. You gain nothing from being referred and lose nothing either: the credit flows one way, to the person who brought you in.
How do I add a profile picture?
The camera badge on your avatar, on Profile or on the Feed. Pick a photo, then drag to position and use the slider to zoom before you save.
What's my member card, and why am I being asked to make one?
Your member card is your public existence in the room: the display name and @handle other members see on your posts, in comments, and in member search. It's the one required step after signup — if you skipped it, you'll see a finish your member card bar until it's done. Your Diary, Portfolio, and preferences stay private regardless.
My travel advisor gave me a membership. How does that work?
Open the link they sent and join. Your membership activates on arrival and costs you nothing for as long as they're in our Maven program. It is a full membership, not a trial: the planner, the Atlas, and the trip diary all work normally, and everything you write stays yours.
I forgot my password.
"Forgot your password?" on the sign-in page sends a reset link to your email. Open it in the same browser you asked from — it signs you in and takes you straight to choosing a new password.
Can I change my name or handle?
Yes — on Profile, once every 30 days. Your old handle keeps pointing at you, so shared links to your card don't break. The form tells you live whether a handle is available.
Why can't I put “Bause” in my name?
Names carrying Bause are granted, never picked — when you see one on a member, it means something. Everything else within the handle rules (3–24 characters, lowercase letters, numbers, underscores) is yours to claim.
What's the Vault, and is my information safe in it?
The Vault is where your sensitive details live: your real name, passports, TSA/KTN, and loyalty numbers. Opening it asks for your password again, and it locks itself after 15 minutes. Inside, every number shows only its last four digits — tap the 👁 to reveal one when a booking form asks for it, and Copy is right beside it. The full numbers are unreadable to the app itself except through that one reveal, and no one else can ever see them. Your real name has one extra choice: a switch that lets members find you by it in search. Even then, only your member card appears — your real name itself is never shown to anyone.
Copernicus and the Atlas
Two different tools. Knowing which one you want saves you a conversation.
When do I use the chat, and when do I use search?
Copernicus plans. Tell him where you are going and the conversation becomes an itinerary. The Atlas search bar looks things up. If all you want is a property, search for it: that is faster than asking, and it is what the bar is for.
How do I see the map?
The 🗺 Atlas button at the top of the chat, or "See it on the map" on any property card. Every Sterling property is already pinned, all at once.
I searched for a place and it isn't there.
Choose "✦ Research it" and it enters the Atlas. If the property has never been covered, it is logged as YOUR nomination, listed under Your nominations on your Profile. If it earns a Sterling designation, you earn Bause Cred for having surfaced it first.
Does my research show up on the map for everyone?
The card is yours immediately. The public pin depends on standing: at Level 6 you reach Contributor status and your researched properties pin the Atlas automatically. Below that, new research waits in a short review queue before its pin appears — the card works the whole time.
How do I add a property to my itinerary?
Ask Copernicus to add it, in those words. He adds only on an explicit ask, never on his own.
The Sterling Standard
The editorial coverage behind every rating in the Atlas.
What's Sterling coverage?
Travel Bause's own editorial coverage of properties: sourced research weighed against one written methodology — the Sterling Standard — and closed with a verdict: whether Bauses would return, and what keeps coming up. The ratings on property cards come from that coverage. Copernicus quotes it when he plans your trip; he never rates anything himself.
Who are Maxwell Sterling and Tiberius Blackstone?
Our two editorial voices — AI correspondents for the Travel Bause team, grounded in sourced research and the founders' own travel experience, with human editorial review before anything publishes. Maxwell Sterling makes the case: the methodology, and the properties that keep their promises after the photograph. Tiberius Blackstone takes it to the floor — the suite, the bar, the back room — and reports what actually happened. Follow them on their profiles for their picks, travel adventures, and editorials.
The Feed
How do I post?
The composer at the top of the Feed. Up to ten photos and videos per post: the first is the cover, and you can tap any thumbnail to promote it before publishing. Videos are MP4, MOV, or WebM — most any length is fine (very large files, over 500MB, are the only limit).
I can only read part of an article on the Feed. Where's the rest?
Tap Continue reading on the card. Every article has its own page — the hero image beside the writing, magazine-style. Everyone reads the opening; Bauses open one full story a month (and it stays open all month); Bause Pros read everything.
Can I keep a post to come back to?
Yes — the bookmark under any post. One tap saves it; tap it again and you can file it in a collection you name yourself (Vacation, Restaurants, whatever you like), and a post can sit in more than one. Everything lands on Saved, in the menu under your name. Saving is private. Nobody — not the author, not us on your card — is told what you saved or how many people saved anything. Deleting a collection keeps the posts; they stay in Saved.
How do I find another member?
"Find a Bause" at the top of the Feed, or the Accounts tab in search. Search by name, handle, or home city — and starting your search with @ takes you straight to people. Tap a result to reach their card and follow them from there.
How do I get my photo onto a property card?
Name the place in the composer and pick it from the list that appears. Your post then lands on that property's card, where the next Bause reading about it will see it. You can also add photos from the property card itself.
I posted without naming the place. Can I still attach it?
Yes. Your post carries a "📍 Add property" option. Attaching it after the fact works exactly the same as attaching it at the time.
I made a typo. Can I edit?
Captions, yes: ✎ Edit on your own post. Photos, yes: ⧉ Photos lets you reorder them, change the cover, or remove one. You cannot swap in a different photo after posting, which is deliberate: the picture people liked stays the picture they liked.
Bause takes
A take is what you actually thought: a boots-on-the-ground report (BOTG) from someone who was standing there. It is the closest thing the app has to a review.
How do I leave a take?
Open the property and choose the Bause takes tab. Answer whether you would return, pick the facets that fit, and write your field note. That is the whole form.
Can I change my take later?
Yes. You hold one live take per property, and editing it replaces what is showing. A second stay is meant to change your mind, so the take moves with you.
What is the Bause Pulse?
Once a property has enough takes, they are compiled into a summary that sits beside the Sterling verdict: whether Bauses would return, what keeps coming up, and what the room is saying in one line. Individual takes stay readable underneath.
Are there star ratings?
No, and there never will be. No scores, no leaderboards, no ranking one property against another. A verdict is written by someone who was there.
Challenges and capture
Crests are earned with boots on the ground. This is the part that is strictest, on purpose.
How do I join a challenge?
The Join button on Challenges. Joining is public: the crest appears on your profile with your live progress.
How do I confirm a leg?
Stand where the leg says to stand and use "📸 Verify here" on that leg. It opens the camera. The photo is taken in the app, your location is checked against the leg, and the leg is confirmed on the spot: +25 Bause Cred.
Why won't it accept a photo from my camera roll?
Because a gallery upload cannot prove you were there, and BOTG is the whole point. Verification means an in-app capture inside the boundary, and that restriction is the entire value of a crest. Uploading a beautiful photo of Machu Picchu is a post, not a verification.
I've been somewhere before. Does that count?
Mark it Been There. It fills the crest so your record is honest, and it earns zero cred. Nothing is awarded backward, for anyone, ever.
Is every leg worth the same?
No. A leg pays what the tier is worth, because standing somewhere hard should not pay the same as standing somewhere easy: 25 on a starter crest, up to 100 on an epic one. Each challenge shows its own figure on its card.
So how does a challenge actually complete?
Every leg has to be accounted for, and at least half of them have to be verified BOTG. Marking six of the Seven Wonders as Been There does not finish the crest.
There's no signal where I'm going.
Capture anyway. Location comes from satellites and works with no bars at all. The capture is held on your device and finishes when you are back in range, as long as that happens within three days.
Bause Cred
What earns cred?
Contribution. Posts, photos, comments, diary entries, and field notes earn as you go, with daily limits so a hundred comments is not a strategy. The larger awards are for the things only you can do BOTG: a verified capture, a challenge leg, a property you nominated that earns a Sterling designation — and feedback you filed that we shipped. Likes and streaks earn nothing.
What are the levels?
Ten, from Wanderer to Bause Legend. Your badge starts travelling with you at Navigator, level four. Levels run on lifetime cred, so spending never demotes you. Your standing is at Cred.
Where do I see what I've earned?
Your activity bell, the 🔔 at the top of the page. Every award is listed under Your Activity with what it was for, newest first.
Building an itinerary
You do not fill in a form. You plan out loud with Copernicus, and the itinerary assembles itself underneath the conversation.
How do I start one?
Tell Copernicus where you are going. When he surfaces somewhere you want, say so plainly: "add the St. Regis to my itinerary", "lock in Rasika", or just "yes, add it" after he offers. Each one lands on the trip and the trip appears under Trips. He never adds anything on his own, so nothing arrives that you did not choose.
Someone sent me a Travel Prompt file. What do I do with it?
That file is your trip, prepared for you by a travel planner on Travel Bause. Open Copernicus on the home screen, paste the whole file into the chat — the note at the top and all — and send it. Copernicus reads it, builds the complete trip, and it appears under Trips. He will not ask you a single question; everything he needs is already in the prompt. The picks your planner locked in are honored exactly as written.
How does one trip stay one trip?
A journey with several stops is a single trip. Lima, Cusco and Machu Picchu on one set of dates all land together, and everything you add through that conversation joins the same itinerary rather than scattering into separate ones.
How do I set the dates?
On the trip's cover: from and to, then Set dates. The days lay themselves out immediately. Until you set them, days are simply Day 1, Day 2, and everything still works.
What are the tabs?
Itinerary is the day-by-day spine. Getting there holds flights and trains. The stay and The tables hold your hotels and your restaurants. Copernicus keeps the guidance worth saving from your planning chats. Keepsakes is where you share it.
Where do reservation links live?
Ask Copernicus for reservation or official-site links and he checks each one live — never from memory — then saves the whole list on the trip itself: open your trip under Trips and look in the Copernicus tab for a card called "Reservation links", each place with its link, tappable. A link he verifies while adding a place also rides onto that item's own line in the day-by-day. When he can't verify a site, he says book direct rather than guessing — a dead link never makes the list.
How do I put things on particular days?
Open Itinerary and place each item on its day. A hotel is different: tick every night you are there and it spans them, so a stay split across two parts of a journey shows as two runs rather than one long blur.
Do I have to enter dates twice?
You should not have to. The itinerary is the source of truth: where an item sits in the days IS its date, so moving a hotel to different nights carries its check-in and check-out with it. If you ever find a corner that asks you to type the same thing twice, that is a bug worth telling us about, not something you should work around.
Can I add something Copernicus didn't suggest?
Yes. Every tab has its own add line, by name: a flight, a restaurant, a bar. At the bottom of the Itinerary there is one add line for activities, where you can choose the day right there or leave it unplaced and decide later.
There's a gap in my plan.
Take it back to Copernicus. He can see what the trip already holds, so ask him for the missing night or the missing dinner and add his answer the same way you added the rest.
What happens to the itinerary once I'm travelling?
It becomes the diary. The same days take your journal lines, your photos, and your video, so the plan and the record of what actually happened are one document. Nothing has to be started over when you land.
Trips and the diary
What is a trip diary?
One record for the whole journey: your plan, your days, your photos and video, your notes. It is yours and it stays private unless you invite people into it.
How do I bring other people in?
The Travelers box on the trip. Type @ and their name if they are already a Bause, and they are added immediately. If they are not, invite them by email and the trip is waiting when they join.
Can I put a diary photo on the Feed?
Yes, with "→ feed" on the photo. The diary keeps its own copy.
Your activity bell
What's the bell?
The 🔔 is your activity bell, and everything addressed to you arrives there: notes from Travel Bause, your cred as it is awarded, who liked and commented on your posts, price alerts, and messages from other members. One bell, one number, nothing to hunt for.
How do I message someone?
✉ Message on their profile, beside Follow. Messages are not encrypted, and you should not send anything sensitive in one. The full disclosure sits at the top of every thread.
I don't want messages.
Turn off the receive toggle on Profile, and block anyone individually from inside a thread.
Something's wrong in the Feed.
⚑ Report on any post, comment, take, or message. It goes to a person, with the note you wrote attached.
Something in the app is broken, confusing, or missing.
Tell the founders — in the menu on every page. One box, an optional screenshot, and a founder reads every note. You can watch your item's status on that page, and when what you asked for ships, your activity bell tells you.
Still stuck? Write to hello@travelbause.com. A person reads it.