My profile page Just Got a Big Upgrade 🗺️

We quietly rolled out a bunch of improvements to the profile page, and honestly it was long overdue. Here's what's new and why we think you'll love it.

Tell people who you actually are

Until now, your profile was pretty bare-bones: a nickname, a photo, and a short "about me". That's not a lot to go on when you're deciding whether to reach out to a stranger and ask if they want to backpack Southeast Asia together.

So we added a whole new Travel Profile section. You can now share:

Languages you speak — a huge deal when you're travelling together and need to navigate, negotiate, or just chat on a 12-hour bus ride
Countries you've visited — because knowing someone's been to 40 countries (or 4!) says a lot about how they travel
Your travel style — city tripper? Beach bum? Adventure seeker? Pick what fits
Your travel pace — relaxed, average, or full-speed-ahead. Pace mismatches are one of the most common reasons travel buddies don't click, so let's surface this upfront
Interests and hobbies — food, photography, hiking, live music — whatever makes you you
Instagram — optional,
All with privacy controls (more on that below)

Answer three short prompts

This is probably our favourite addition. Instead of staring at a blank "about me" box, you now have three prompts to answer:

Best trip so far — your highlight reel. Gets people talking.
My ideal travel buddy — what you're actually looking for, in plain words.
My travel dealbreakers — the honest stuff. Do you need your own room? Hate early mornings? Can't do hostels? Say it here so there are no surprises.

These answers show up on your public profile and give other members a real feel for whether you'd travel well together — way more than a list of countries ever could.

More gender options

The old gender field only had Male, Female, and "not specified". That's not good enough. You can now choose from:

Male
Female
Non-binary
Other
Prefer not to say

Same goes for the "looking for" preference when posting a trip — we swapped the old "Male or Female" option for a simple Any, and added Non-binary as a standalone option.

A completion meter so you know where you stand

There's now a progress bar at the top of your profile page showing how complete your profile is, as a percentage. Fill in more sections, watch it go up. Simple, but it turns out having a number to chase actually works — just ask LinkedIn.

A complete profile means more people will reach out to you, and more people will say yes when you reach out to them.

Your privacy, your rules

Here's the part we're most proud of. Every new field has its own visibility setting, so you're in control of who sees what:

Members only — only logged-in members of 12TravelBuddy can see this. This is the default for everything.
Public — anyone who visits your profile can see it, even if they're not signed in.
Connections only — only people you've accepted as connections can see it. This is the default for your Instagram handle specifically.

You set this per field, right there on the profile page, with a small dropdown next to each section. No digging through settings menus.

Go update your profile

Seriously — the more you fill in, the better your matches will be. Head to My Profile and spend ten minutes on it. Your future travel buddy is out there waiting.