A trail is the one build where the physical layout of your space does the work. The visitor is already walking past nine things; a passport gives the walk a shape, a reason to reach the ninth, and a record of who got there. This article builds one end to end.
What a passport is made of
Three parts, and only the middle one is new to you.
- One published Experience per stop. A stop is an Experience, not a block and not a Marker. In practice that usually means one Marker pointing at one Experience at one place.
- A Passport block listing those Experiences as its stops. It draws a progress bar, ticks off the stops the visitor has reached, and reveals the reward when the last one lands.
- A reward: a message you write, and optionally a short code the visitor shows to a member of staff.
One answer, three jobs
You ask once
A Quick Choice block: 'First time here, or a regular?'
The answer is stored
{{visitor_type}}
Held on that visitor's device against this Experience.
It changes the words
Any block's copy can say {{visitor_type}} and it is filled in before the page renders.
It changes what appears
Show-and-hide rules test the answer, so a returning visitor never sees the orientation blocks again.
It shows up in stats
You can see how the answers split, which tells you who is actually tapping.
How many stops is right
Six to nine. Below six it does not feel like a trail; above nine you are asking for a commitment most visitors will not finish, and an abandoned passport is worse than no passport because the visitor can see how far short they fell.
There is a hard ceiling too. A stop is an Experience, and Growth gives you 10 live Experiences and 30 Marker placements. Nine stops plus an orientation page at the entrance is exactly ten. If you want more stops than that, the plan is Enterprise, not a workaround.
- Walk the route before you pick the stops. Nine stops that need a visitor to double back reads as six stops and a chore.
- Put the first stop where people already stop (the entrance, the first big tank, the ticket desk), so the passport is discovered rather than advertised.
- Leave one stop out of the trail on purpose. A tenth Marker that is just information is how you find out whether the trail is what people wanted.
Build it
- 1
Create one Experience per stop and name it after the place
The name you type is the name the passport shows in its stop list. There is no separate label field, so Otter Point and Coral Lab beat Stop 3 and Stop 4.
- 2
Build each stop page as you would any other
A Heading, a short Text block, an Image with alt text, and whatever the stop actually needs. The passport does not require anything particular on the page.
- 3
Publish every stop
Only published Experiences appear in the Passport block's stop picker. A draft is invisible to it.
- 4
Register and link one Marker per stop
Enter the six-character PIN from the back of the Marker, then link it to that stop's Experience. See Registering a Marker.
- 5
Add a Passport block to each stop Experience
There is no shared version: add the block once per page, and tick the same stops each time. It is worth the repetition: a visitor at stop 5 can see they have four left, and each unreached stop in the list is a link to that stop's page.
- 6
Tick the stops in the order you want them listed
Ticking order sets display order. It does not force a route: visitors can do the stops in any order they like.
- 7
Decide how a stop is earned
Leave Require a check-in at each stop off unless presence matters more than a tap. The next section covers the trade.
- 8
Write the reward
Reward message is the sentence they see when the bar fills. Reward code (optional) prints underneath in a mono box with the hint Show this to redeem, something like
TRAIL10. - 9
Switch on Notify me
In the When someone answers panel below the block's own fields. Finishing a trail is worth a push to your phone; it is the one moment on the whole route where a member of staff might want to say well done.
- 10
Publish, then walk the route with a phone
Tap every Marker in order and watch the bar fill. This is the only test that catches a Marker pointed at the wrong stop.
Deciding how a stop is earned
One checkbox, and it changes what the trail is for.
| Require a check-in | What earns a stop | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Off (the default) | Opening that stop's page. A check-in also counts, so this is the forgiving setting. | The trail is an activity. You want completion, not proof. |
| On | Only a Check-In block on that stop's page. Add one to every stop or nobody can finish. | The reward has real value, or the trail is being marked by staff. |
The Check-In block itself is a Growth block with a button label (Mark as visited by default) and an Auto check-in on page load option. Auto is the right setting for a trail: the visitor is standing at the Marker, and asking them to press a second button after tapping the Marker is a step that buys nothing.
When a stop is closed
Habitats close. A gallery gets rehung, a tank goes offline, a path floods. Untick that stop in every Passport block and republish. Progress is recalculated from the current list each time the page renders, so a visitor who has done the other eight is complete the moment they next open a passport, because the total drops with the stop.
- Do not leave a closed stop in the list hoping people skip it. An unreachable stop makes the trail unfinishable, and the visitor's only feedback is a bar that will not fill.
- Completion is recorded once per visitor per Experience the block sits on. Someone who already finished is not notified again and is not asked to finish again.
- Do not put two Passport blocks on the same Experience. They share one completion record, so the second one will read as already finished.
A version that works without the Passport block
This is the technique the legacy 42Kites help centre taught, and it still works on any plan, including Free. Instead of tracking progress, you hide the reward behind a code the visitor assembles by walking the route.
- 1
Build the reward as its own Experience
Whatever they get: a discount, a certificate, a video from the keeper.
- 2
Lock it with a PIN
Builder → Settings → Require PIN to view, covered in full in locking an Experience with a PIN. The PIN is 4 to 8 characters, and the Challenge message above the PIN box is where the riddle goes: Enter the four letters from the four feeding boards.
- 3
Put one character of the PIN on each stop
A Promo Box is the block for this: a coloured callout that holds a character or a word and nothing else.
- 4
Make the code work in any order
Number the boards, or use a word whose letters are numbered on the Promo Boxes, so a visitor who walks the route backwards still gets there.
Telling whether people finish
Three places, in rising order of effort.
- Your phone. With Notify me on, each completion is a push to the NearField app.
- Stats → the stop's own report. On Growth, the Engagement section carries a passport card with the completion count and the most recent finishers, and a From visit to answer funnel above it showing how many of the people who opened the page did anything at all.
- Audience → Timeline. Every stop earned and every completion is a row on the visitor's own timeline, with the Marker that recorded it.
The number to watch is not completions, it is the drop between stop one and stop two. If nine in ten people who reach the first stop never reach the second, the trail is not too long. It is not legible. Put the passport higher on the first page.
Example
Cedar Hollow Zoo & Aquarium
Cedar Hollow runs seven stops on the Growth plan: Otter Point, Coral Lab, Flamingo Lagoon, the Reptile House, Penguin Beach, the Touch Pool and Keeper's Corner. One Marker at each, mounted at child height beside the existing interpretive board.
Stops are earned by opening the page. The trail is a school-holiday activity, not an audit. Each stop page carries a Passport block titled Cedar Hollow Passport, so a child at Penguin Beach sees 4 of 7 stops and three tappable names for what is left.
The reward message reads: You found all seven. Show this at the Gift Barn for a free animal badge. The reward code is CEDAR7. Notify me is on, so the gift shop hears about a finisher before the family walks in.
When the Reptile House closed for six weeks, Cedar Hollow unticked it from all seven blocks. The trail became 6 of 6 overnight, and the families mid-route finished on their next stop instead of hitting a locked door.
What happens if a visitor clears their browser halfway round?
They start again. Progress rides on that device, held against your account alone. On Growth you can fix this with Ask visitors to verify their phone first on the Passport block: one text, one code, once, and any device that verifies the same number picks the trail back up where it was.
Can visitors do the stops in any order?
Yes, always. The order you tick the stops is the order they are listed, nothing more. Nothing in the product enforces a sequence, which is the right default for a building where people wander.
Can I run two trails at once?
Yes. One Passport block per trail, each on its own Experience. What you must not do is put two Passport blocks on the same Experience: they share a single completion record, so the second reads as already finished.
Does a stop need its own Marker?
No. A stop is an Experience, so a printed QR on a trail sheet works too. One Marker per stop is the usual shape because it also gives you a per-stop view count at no extra cost.
Group your stops into a Project first and the whole trail rolls up as one set of numbers in Stats and Audience.
Open Projects