How It Works
One shared bottle carries your message and everyone’s replies. People pass it along by sharing its link.
Reading and sharing are free. Casting a bottle or adding a reply uses one penny.
Write your message and choose your starting place
A question, a memory, a wish, or something on your heart. Add a name or stay anonymous. “Cast off” is where your bottle starts: if you are sending it from Los Angeles, choose Los Angeles, California. Your location is optional. Use a city, never your exact address. This field does not choose a destination.
Cast your bottle for one penny
Casting saves your original message and uses one penny from your balance. Your bottle appears in My bottles. Choose how many reply stops it should collect before coming home, up to 100. New participants receive 5 free starter pennies; casting and replying use those pennies before you need to buy more.
Pass it along by sharing its link — free
Open your bottle from My bottles or The journey and tap Share this bottle. Choose Messages, WhatsApp, email, social media, or another available sharing option. AirDrop is available on supported Apple devices. If Penny copies the link instead, paste it into your chosen message and send it. The recipient opens that link to reach the same bottle. Sharing does not use a penny. You can share without adding a reply.
Read for free; add a reply for one penny
Opening the link, wiping the bottle, reading messages, and viewing its journey are free. Tap Add your penny to write a reply. Saving that reply uses one penny from your own balance and adds a stop to the bottle. Your name and approximate location are optional. Each participant can add one reply to that bottle. Replying does not give you money or extra pennies.
Keep every message aboard the same bottle
Your reply joins the original message and earlier replies; it does not replace them or create a new bottle. Tap View all thoughts to browse the replies, then select a thought to read it. Anyone with the bottle link can see its messages and recorded places. Keep private details out of the story.
Follow the journey as it grows
The sender can open My bottles to see replies as they arrive, before the bottle comes home. Reopen the bottle to load the latest story. The globe shows recorded starting and reply locations. Its moving travel lines replay that journey; people create new stops by participating. Forwarding the link alone does not add a recorded stop.
Welcome your bottle home
When the bottle reaches the number of reply stops chosen at casting, it is marked Home again and stops accepting new replies. Your original message and all replies remain available to read and share. “Coming home” means the reply journey is complete; you do not have to wait until then to read the story.
Join a shared adventure
A bottle can become a shared story for friends, a family, hostel guests, a hotel activity, or a cruise group. Everyone uses the same bottle link. You do not need to create a new bottle to join someone else’s adventure.
Starting an adventure
- Choose a shared prompt. Try “What is one memory you’re taking home from this trip?” or “Can we help this bottle reach Rome?”
- Cast one bottle. Write the prompt, choose your real starting city, and select its number of reply stops. Casting uses one penny.
- Invite your group. Open that bottle and tap Share this bottle. Send its link to the group chat, or use an available sharing option with people who want to join. Sharing is free.
Joining and passing it onward
- Open the invitation’s bottle link. Read the original prompt and use View all thoughts to explore earlier replies. Reading is free.
- Add your piece of the story. Tap Add your penny, write a reply, and optionally add your name and current city. Saving your reply uses one penny from your balance. New participants receive 5 free starter pennies.
- Pass the same bottle to someone else. Tap Share this bottle and send the link. You can share for free even if you choose not to reply. Adding a reply and sending the link are two separate actions.
- Return to watch it grow. Keep the link and reopen it to see new thoughts and places. The person who cast it can also find it in My bottles. Everyone with the link can read the shared story.
A trip that keeps traveling
Imagine guests at an island hotel or on a cruise answering the same question. After the trip, they share that bottle with friends back home. A reply from a new city adds a recorded stop when the participant includes that city. The memories stay together while the journey grows.
Invitation example: “Join our message-in-a-bottle adventure. Open this link, leave a memory if you like, and pass the same bottle to someone in another city. Reading and sharing are free; a reply uses one starter penny.” Add your bottle’s link when you send the invitation.
A hoped-for city is a group challenge, not an automatic destination. People help it reach that city by sharing the link with someone there. The journey finishes when it reaches its chosen number of reply stops.
Celebrate your bottle coming home
If you cast the bottle, open My bottles and choose its Home again story. Read the replies, then tap Share this bottle and post its link to your social media, group chat, or friends. You can add a screenshot of its journey or attach a short video of your own. Sharing is free and optional; Penny does not post to your accounts automatically.
Try a caption like: “Our bottle came home! Here are the places it reached and the memories everyone left. Open the link to read our story.” Completed bottles remain readable, but stop accepting replies. Cast a new bottle if you want to start another adventure.
Your questions, answered
How do I help my bottle reach Rome?
Start with your actual starting city, such as Los Angeles. In your message, write: “Help this bottle reach Rome. Leave a thought and share this link with someone in Rome.” Cast it, tap Share this bottle, and send the link to a friend, family member, or community with a connection to Rome. Ask them to pass the same link along. You can also send the link directly to someone in Rome. Penny currently has no destination selector or automatic city routing, so a hoped-for destination is not guaranteed.
What makes Rome show up on the journey?
Someone in Rome needs to open the link, tap Add your penny, and save a reply with Rome as their approximate location. That reply costs them one penny and records a Rome stop. Simply opening or forwarding the link does not add Rome to the map. Entering Rome as your starting city would tell Penny the bottle started there.
Can someone pass it along without spending a penny?
Yes. They can tap Share this bottle and send its link without replying. Reading and sharing are free. Only casting a new bottle or saving a reply uses one penny. A reply does not automatically send the bottle to another person; sharing the link is a separate action.
What does the next person see?
The same original bottle, its original message, the replies already aboard, and its recorded journey. View all thoughts opens the reply list. Messages are visible along the way, not held privately until the bottle comes home.
What if I wrote the wrong message or starting city?
Check your message and starting location before casting. You can change them while they are still in the writing form. Penny currently has no edit or undo button after casting. Casting a corrected bottle uses another penny.
Do I need an account, and how do I keep my bottles?
No account is required. Your pennies and bottles belong to a browser wallet. Use the same browser to return, or save a private recovery key through Keep or recover your pennies in the balance panel. The key restores that wallet on another device. Keep it private: anyone with your key can access the wallet.
The words behind Penny
“A penny for your thoughts” is an old English invitation to share what is on your mind. An early recorded use appears in Sir Thomas More’s Four Last Things, also known as A Treatyce upon the last thynges, in the sixteenth century. We honor that history without claiming More invented a saying that may already have been in use.
Start where you are. Share it with someone. See where the story goes.