Obsidian Plugin · Free & Open Source

Your travels deserve
beautiful stories

HikerScrolls turns your Obsidian trip notes into stunning, shareable travel journals — with GPX route maps, AI-generated pen sketches, and cinematic scrollytelling layouts.

3
Journal templates
AI
Sketch & layout gen
100%
Your data, local-first
hikerscrolls.com/demo

Three ways to tell your story

Choose the layout that matches your travel style. Every template includes an interactive GPX route map and AI-powered features.

Scrollytelling
Cinematic route reveal
Classic
Scrollytelling

A cinematic scroll experience — the GPX route draws itself as you scroll, with location photos appearing at each waypoint.

Route animation Scroll-driven Location photos
Scrapbook
Drag & arrange photos
Interactive
Scrapbook

Polaroid-style photo cards on a cork board. Drag, rotate, and arrange them — flip each card to reveal the AI-generated pen sketch.

Draggable photos Polaroid flip AI sketches
Illustrated
Sketch & photo pairing
Artistic
Illustrated

An elegant layout pairing photos with Gemini-generated pen illustrations. Tap a photo to zoom; double-tap to flip and reveal the sketch beneath.

Photo + sketch Flip reveal Route map

Intelligence built into every journal

Bring your API key for Gemini or Claude. HikerScrolls uses AI to enrich your journals with artwork, context, and smart layouts.

Pen Sketch Generation

Every photo can be transformed into a clean pen-and-ink illustration using Gemini's image generation.

Powered by Gemini's image generation model. Each photo is sent with a carefully tuned prompt that produces a pure white-background pen sketch in a consistent hand-drawn style.

Sketches are stored alongside the original in your vault and displayed via a flip-card interaction — tap a photo to zoom, double-tap to reveal the sketch.

Click to learn more
Location Enrichment

AI analyzes your photos to identify the location, look up historical context, and write a travel narrative.

Uses Gemini vision to identify what's in each photo, then Tavily web search to find real-world context — historical facts, cultural significance, local stories.

Claude synthesizes everything into a polished paragraph that reads like a travel blog. One click in the wizard does it all.

Click to learn more
Smart Layout

The AI layout engine assigns your photos and notes to journal sections, ordered by GPX track position.

Photos are automatically sorted by their nearest point along the GPX track, so the journal follows the natural flow of your journey — not upload order.

The wizard's Step 4 lets you fine-tune with checkbox-based location assignment. Locations already used in other sections are dimmed to prevent duplicates.

Click to learn more
EXIF GPS Mapping

Upload photos with GPS metadata and the plugin plots them on the route map automatically.

The wizard reads EXIF GPS data from your photos and groups nearby ones (within ±0.001°) into locations. Each gets a blue "EXIF" badge on the map.

Photos without GPS? No problem — use the AI-Assisted mode to let Gemini identify the location, or simply click the map to place them manually.

Click to learn more
Multi-Model Support

Gemini for vision & image gen, Claude for text analysis, Tavily for web search — all configurable.

Each AI provider handles what it does best: Gemini Flash for photo analysis and sketch generation, Claude for nuanced writing, Tavily for real-time web search.

Bring your own API keys — configure model selection, provider, and behavior in the plugin settings panel.

Click to learn more
Private & Local-First

Your data stays in your Obsidian vault. AI calls go directly from your device — no middleman.

HikerScrolls never sends your data through any intermediary server. API calls go directly from your device to Gemini / Claude / Tavily.

All journal data — photos, GPX tracks, sketches, text — lives as plain files in your vault. You own everything, always.

Click to learn more

From trip to story in three steps

The journal wizard walks you through everything. No design skills needed.

1
Create your trip

Name your trip, pick a date range, upload a GPX file, and drop in your photos. The wizard handles EXIF GPS extraction automatically.

2
AI enriches the content

Let AI identify locations, write descriptions, generate pen sketches from photos, and arrange everything into sections ordered by your route.

3
Publish & share

Export your journal to a standalone HTML file or deploy it to a static host. Share the link — no account or app required for viewers.

Get a GPX file

Don't have a GPX file yet? Here are two great options to create one.

See it in action

Explore real trip journals created with HikerScrolls. Try all three templates — scroll, drag, flip, and zoom.

hikerscrolls.com/demo

Install in 60 seconds

HikerScrolls is a community plugin for Obsidian. No external account needed to get started.

  • 1
    Open Obsidian and go to Settings → Community Plugins → Browse
  • 2
    Search for HikerScrolls and click Install
  • 3
    Enable the plugin and paste your Gemini API key in the settings panel
  • 4
    Click the HikerScrolls icon in the left sidebar to open the library and create your first journal
📋 Requirements
  • Obsidian v1.0 or later
  • Gemini API key (free tier available)
  • Trip photos (JPG/PNG)
  • GPX file from your hike or ride
  • Optional: Claude API key for richer text
  • Optional: Tavily API key for web search