Honest answers
Why is there a free tier at all?
Because Farside exists to make travel tracking easy and fun for everyone — not to lock the basics behind a paywall. We want anyone to map every country, region, and city they've been to, star the next places they're dreaming of, and discover destinations they hadn't thought of yet through the map and the Journal. Free gets you the full Passport map, your visits, three custom wishlists, a simple travel log, and unlimited friends — enough to live in for years.
Can I earn Citizen for free?
Yes. Every five friends who join through your invite and start filling in their own map — five countries is the bar — earns you one free month of Citizen, and it keeps compounding. Bring fifteen and that's three months; bring ten more the following month and that's two more, five in total. Subscribers earn too, and the months are added on top rather than absorbed: buy an annual for twelve months, refer ten active friends, and you have fourteen months of Citizen — the referred months are held and start the moment your paid term ends. Your invite link lives on the Friends tab.
What happens if I cancel Citizen?
You drop back to Free at the end of your billing period. Your data — visits, wishlists, friends — stays. Lists you created stay accessible to anyone you shared them with; you just can't create new ones until you re-subscribe. Your Founding Member badge (if you have one) stays on your profile — it's permanent, subscription or not.
How does the founding-member badge work?
One count, never timed: the first 100 members. Each of the first 100 paying members gets a permanent "Founding Member #N" — yours for life, it doesn't reset, expire or transfer, and keeps displaying on your profile and in friends' lists whether or not you stay subscribed. While those 100 places last, you can also join as a Founding Citizen: Citizen at $39.99 a year, locked for as long as you stay subscribed. Once 100 are taken, both close — for good.
Is Wayfarer just Citizen with more features?
Wayfarer is your complete passport: every journey counted, every day documented. It is for people with a day-count job — entrepreneurs running things from anywhere, remote workers and nomads splitting time across multiple bases, expats, and corporate travellers (regional sales, procurement, merchandisers, account managers) flying constantly for meetings. Free and Citizen count days by country from the journeys their plan shows; Wayfarer counts all of them, watches tax-residence thresholds and sends Schengen stay alerts. It's a job-to-be-done product, not "premium for premium's sake".
Can I get a refund?
7-day return guarantee. If Citizen isn't what you expected, request a refund within 7 days of subscribing and we'll process it (and cancel your subscription immediately). After 7 days, there are no refunds — but you can cancel any time and you won't be charged again. To request a refund, open your Passport → My Account → Subscription → Request a refund, or email support@farside.earth if you've already cancelled.
Where does the money go?
Servers, audio production for the podcast, paying the operators who help us research destinations, and the inevitable graveyard of features that didn't pan out. Farside is operated as a sole proprietorship from Hong Kong; there's no VC, no board, no growth-at-all-costs pressure. Citizen subscriptions are how the publication stays independent.
Is my data safe?
Your account data lives in an encrypted database we own (Turso). Payments go through Stripe; we never see your card. We don't sell or share your data, we don't run ads, and we don't load tracking scripts on the Passport itself. Details in our Privacy Policy.