Data Sources and Licenses

Waybound Studio is built on open, traceable data sources at its foundation and Google's services in premium mode. Here's exactly what comes from where, under what licence, and what that means for you as a traveller.

Maps and places

OpenStreetMap powers the platform's core places catalogue, WB Open Places – rest areas, motorhome stops, campsites, viewpoints and facilities across Europe. Licensed under ODbL 1.0 (Open Database License). Every page that shows OSM-derived data credits © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Trafikverket (the Swedish Transport Administration) contributes rest area data in Sweden. Licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal – effectively public domain, with no attribution requirement. We credit Trafikverket anyway, for the same reason as everything else on this page: it's the right thing to do, not just what the licence demands.

OpenRouteService (by HeiGIT) calculates routes on the free tier. Results are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 and credited "© openrouteservice by HeiGIT | Data from OpenStreetMap" wherever a route is shown or shared.

Text and images

Wikivoyage and Wikipedia are the source for place descriptions in Happy Trails – your journey's story. Both are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Every quoted description carries its own source, title and link; our narrator may quote a place, never oversell it.

Wikimedia Commons is the source for place photos in Explorer. Photos are credited to their photographer and licence where shown.

Google (premium mode)

With your own Google key, Waybound Studio uses Google's map, geocoding and places services under Google's own Google Maps Platform terms. The free tier carries no Google key at all – that's a property of the request itself, not a setting that can be forgotten.

What it looks like in the app

The attribution isn't something that only lives here. The map's own footer in the route planner and On The Road reads, verbatim:

Leaflet | © OpenStreetMap contributors, Rutt: © openrouteservice by HeiGIT, Platser: Waybound Open Places, Rastplatser: Trafikverket NVDB

(The labels in that line are Swedish in the app itself — *Rutt* is route, *Platser* is places, *Rastplatser* is rest areas. It is quoted here exactly as it renders.)

Explorer prints its own line along the bottom of the screen: places from Waybound Open Places and OpenStreetMap, text from Wikipedia, images from Wikimedia Commons.

A shared Happy Trails story ends with a Sources block listing the same thing source by source, with licences – map under ODbL, route under CC BY-SA 4.0, place descriptions under CC BY-SA, images credited per image. It travels with the link, even when the recipient has never opened the app.

What this means for you

• Data you see in the app carries its source wherever that's practically possible to show.
• If you share a trip, export to Excel, or send a project file onward, the source credit travels with it – not just inside the app.
• No data source here has been used without its licence actually being reviewed against what we do with it: permanent storage, display, and in some cases redistribution through our own places database.

*This is not legal advice, just an honest summary of what we've actually reviewed and what we found. Licences can change without notice — if in doubt, read the source yourself.*

Privacy

The complete, current privacy policy for Waybound Studio lives inside the app itself, not here — so it can never drift out of sync with what the app actually does. This is a short, honest map to where you'll find what.

Where the policy lives

Open Waybound Studio's privacy policy directly inside the app. It adapts to your chosen language.

Worth knowing up front

• Deletion is self-service. To remove your account and your trips, do it from the app's system menu — not by emailing us.
• Sign-in works via Google, Microsoft, email, or fully locally with no account at all, if you'd rather.
• Shared trips (Happy Trails links) can be withdrawn by you at any time, and never contain text or images you didn't actively choose to add yourself.
• Location permission is only requested when a feature actually needs it, and never on a surface where you can't answer the prompt (for example, the car's own screen in Android Auto — that request happens on the phone instead).

If you have questions

The contact path is in the app's system menu. We prefer that over email for the same reason the licence questions on this site are sourced rather than agreed by word of mouth: an answer you can point back to is worth more than one that only lives in an inbox.

Terms and Responsibility

Waybound Studio is a trip-planning suite, not a guarantee. Here's how we think about responsibility between the app, the data sources, and you as a traveller.

Place data is often incomplete, never invented

WB Open Places is honest about its own gaps: a missing fact like a toilet or shower usually means "not yet surveyed," not "doesn't exist." Confirm on the ground before relying blindly on a stop, especially in sparsely covered areas.

The free tier runs on third-party services with their own limits

OpenRouteService, Trafikverket and OpenStreetMap power the free tier, each with its own operational and quota limits outside our control. An isolated fault or temporary unavailability in one of them can affect a route calculation. Premium mode with your own Google key is an option if you want to reduce that dependency.

Stories and shared trips

Happy Trails tells your trip's story based on the choices you actually made — never with invented enthusiasm about a place beyond what the source itself says. Sharing a trip publicly is your choice, and you can withdraw that share whenever you want.

None of this is legal advice

The Legal pages on this site are an honest summary of what we've actually reviewed in each service's published terms, dated and sourced where relevant — not a legal opinion. Third-party terms can change without notice. If in genuine doubt, read the source yourself or contact us through the app's system menu.