How many of the 82 provinces have you been to? A travel account's check-in app from Cebu, and the half it can't carry

Filipinos have an old habit: showing off how many provinces they've visited. 2023 years ago a web page built on that spread across the country. This September, Cebu travel media Suroy.ph turned the same idea into a polished native app. It's free, needs no sign-up, and has no ads. Eight weeks after launch it has seen fewer than 2,000 installs on Google Play. This piece covers how it got started, why reach is so small, who it's competing with, and which half of this playbook you can take and which half you can't.

Oct 4, a batch of "N/82" on Threads

In Oct 2026 4, a user named Normz posted a map of the Philippines on Threads with visited provinces colored orange, captioned "55 out of 82 provinces 😍 this app made my travel plan around the Philippines much easier", with 2,000 views. The same day, another user shared their own map, writing in Tagalog: "Malayo pa, pero malapit na." (Still far, but getting close.) The line below said "my wanderlust friends, go download Suroy: Philippine Passport". Two days later someone wrote: "@suroy_ph this app is blowing up, and I realized I haven't even been to half of the Philippines."

These maps are share cards generated by the app in one tap, with a fixed caption format: "My Suroy Passport: Been to 31/82 provinces. Where next? … Get the app: suroy.ph/app". Every card shared is an ad with a download link.

What it is

A "Philippine Passport": 82 provinces. Tap the ones you've been to and the map fills in with color. Places you haven't visited can go on a "want to go" list. You can backfill from memory. The store page says it plainly: "counted from the day you were born, not the day you downloaded the app". Your cousin's wedding in Iloilo and that work trip to Davao both count. There's also:

• 7 kinds of desktop and lock-screen widgets; on iOS 27 the whole map can cover an entire home screen page;
• A page per province, holding your stamps, notes and a short story;
• 4 mini-games: "Sakto ba?", which asks you to judge from a photo whether a place name is right; "Fun Run", a parkour run across the Cebu bridge; "Daily Suroy", a daily question; and a Cebu quiz;
• Itinerary generation: tell it your starting point, number of days and preferences, and it drafts a trip with peso reference prices;
• A yearly look-back, with the promo page saying an "annual short video" is coming soon.

No account, no location permission, and data stays on the phone. The website says "Free · No account". No in-app purchases, no subscriptions.

Who's behind it

The last line of the store page: "Built in Cebu by the people behind Suroy.ph and Suroy Wear." Suroy.ph is a Cebu-founded travel media brand; its website lists 226k Facebook followers and 13.7k on Instagram. Suroy Wear is its apparel brand, with 40.9k on Facebook. The little sea turtle in the app (pawikan, the olive sea turtle) and the "Tidal Hope" line from Suroy Wear tell the same story, and the province pages on the website link to matching clothing.

So the app doesn't make money on its own. It's a permanent entry point that puts a content brand on users' phone home screens, and the money is in the clothes. How many clothing sales the app drives is not visible from outside.

How big is it, and where does the traffic come from

Mid-October it saw a dozen or so installs a day, rising to over a hundred a day in late October, then settling between a few dozen and two or three hundred a day. It has charted in only one country, the Philippines: Travel & Local free chart, ranked #47 to #63 (10-29 to 11-06). The bar for this chart is low; a few dozen to a hundred or so installs a day gets you into the top 60, so charting says little. On the iOS Philippines store it has only 8 ratings, all five stars, so actual downloads can't be estimated.

Where users come from, as far as I can find, there are three channels:

1. Its own fans. Suroy.ph's Facebook page ran several promo posts, such as "82 provinces. How many have you actually been to? Suroy is free, with no ads, no sign up and no tracking.", plus a short video of the sea turtle. The website's province pages and mini-game pages also push people to the app. Most of the first people sharing maps on Threads came in through this channel.

2. Share cards. As noted above, every card carries suroy.ph/app. The play is the same as the web page from 2023 years ago: post the number, then compete in group chats over who's been to more.

3. An existing topic. The Philippine travel community has a long-running campaign called #Project82PH, aiming to visit every province. There are DIY travel groups, dedicated bloggers, and people often post on r/PHTravellers. Suroy's line "counted from the day you were born" is written for this crowd.

It also updates often. From September to late October the version went from 1.0 to 1.5.5, and each release shipped something worth posting about (a full-screen widget, a satellite night view, a parkour game), and each update gave the 220k-follower page another push. The late-October growth lines up with the timing of the 1.4 release's promotion. Which post drove it can't be determined (inference).

I found no paid ads, press coverage, X discussion or TikTok videos. It doesn't charge money, and reach is this small, so large-scale paid acquisition is unlikely.

Someone already did this, and it took off

Exploretale is the one worth looking at. Same topic, a year and a half in, no parent brand, 4,327 installs. Suroy caught up to half of that in eight weeks. The difference isn't mainly the product, it's the 220k followers.

Why reach is so small

The demand is real, and 2023 years ago proved it. But it's a low-frequency bragging need: you install it, tap the provinces you've been to, post one map, and rarely open it again. Suroy tries to keep people with widgets, a daily question and mini-games, but those decide whether people stick around and share, not whether new people arrive. New users mostly still come from the parent brand's fans.

The Philippines has tens of millions of smartphone users, yet the app has fewer than 2,000 Android installs. It's still circulating inside fan circles and nowhere near the national frenzy of 2023. That wave in 2023 ran on celebrity reposts and press coverage, and this time neither has happened.

If it were you

Verdict: C. There's plenty to learn from this product, but copying it or doing it in another country is a poor deal for most people. It makes no money, reach is tiny, and what made it take off is something followers can't get: a local travel media brand with 220k followers.

Who it suits: People who already run a local content account (travel, local culture, city accounts) and have merch or products to sell. For them it's a cheap tool that puts social followers on the other side's phone home screen. Treat it as brand spend, not as a business.

Who it doesn't suit: Indie developers with no following who want the app itself to make money. Exploretale is the comparison: a year and a half, just over four thousand installs. It's also not for anyone wanting to build a "global check-in" app, a space where been and Visited already sit at hundreds of thousands to over a million installs.

How to do it (if you do): Pick a country with lots of administrative divisions where people like to compare, write the copy in the local language, and build a number people can brag about (X/82). Share cards must carry a download link; this is the most critical link in the whole loop. Don't require an account, allow backfilling from memory, and let people fill the whole map on first open. Ship something worth posting with every update. First check whether someone locally has already done it: Vietnam already has web tools like "My Vietnam Map" and Worldtally, and Thailand has "My Thailand Map". Vietnam merged its provincial divisions into 2025 in 34, so the old "63 provinces" maps are out of date, which gives a reason to rebuild (inference).

How to get users: Cold-start with your own fans, and use share cards for virality. Without your own fans, partner with local travel bloggers and "visit the whole country" communities so they post the first wave of maps. Celebrity reposts and press coverage were the sources of the 2023 frenzy, and Suroy hasn't tapped them yet.

When to get in: No rush. This kind of demand comes back in cycles: year-end "how many provinces did I visit this year", around long holidays, and after administrative boundary changes are natural timing points.

What would mean I got it wrong: ① After it's picked for the "annual short video" in December, installs climb into the tens of thousands or more. That would show the topic can break out of the fan community as a native app, and C underestimated it. ② Someone in Vietnam, Indonesia or Thailand runs the same playbook without a parent brand and reaches tens of thousands of installs within months. That would show the share-card loop is enough on its own and the parent brand matters less. ③ Suroy Wear publicly says the app drove clear sales. Then "content account builds a tool app to sell merch" is worth more than it looks, and more people would fit it.

Data and sources

• Installs and charts: Google Play install counts and the Philippines category chart, 2026-10-29 to 11-06; installs on Oct 20 and 27 are third-party (AppstoreSpy) estimates.
• iOS ratings and version: App Store Philippines store, 11-06.
• Features, copy and "Built in Cebu": Google Play store page and suroy.ph/app, 11-06.
• Follower counts: suroy.ph website; promo posts: Suroy.ph Facebook page.
• User shares: Threads @normzworld, @eric_banes (10-04), @jonoliverbalili (10-06).
• Precedents from 2023: Rappler, Inquirer, and Philstar all reported on it in 2023-04.
• Installs on rivals: Google Play installs, 11-06. For similar tools in Vietnam and Thailand: App Store and worldtally.app, search 11-06.
• Where it says "estimate" or "inferred", it is an estimate or an inference.