No one likes to squint at their photo albums and wonder aloud, “Where did I take that picture?” But no one wants to whip out a pen-and-paper journal to keep track of these things, either; you just want to take as many vacation pictures as possible. When you geotag your photos, you and those you share them with can view them as part of a larger map, which is a lot more fun than a static slideshow.

Plenty of solutions claim to geotag photos, but we recommend Pharos Trips & Pics ($99.95). Whereas the free services offered by Flickr and Google Picasa require users to manually enter the locations where they shot photos, Trips & Pics uses a small GPS receiver, so you don’t have to remember a thing.

Once you charge the receiver, its battery lasts up to 24 hours, depending on the frequency to which you set it to track your location. Just keep it nearby while you take pictures, and its time and location will sync with the time stamp on your camera.

Once you’ve uploaded your pictures to your PC (sorry, no Mac compatibility), plug the receiver into a USB port, launch the software, and—voila!—you’ll see an instant map of all the shooting you’ve done. The device is compatible with Google Earth and Microsoft Streets and Trips. Here’s how to get started.