An iPhone does not provide one complete, user-browsable timeline of every place it has been. Different Apple and third-party services can retain different kinds of location information, so first decide whether you are looking for Significant Locations, recent Maps activity, or a history stored by another service.
Review Significant Locations
Open Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, scroll to System Services, and open Significant Locations if it is available. Authenticate when prompted. This feature supports personalized location services; it should not be treated as a complete travel log or a list of every GPS point the iPhone has recorded.
Check Maps for recent activity
Apple Maps can show recent searches, destinations, guides, or other activity that is useful when you are trying to remember a place. What is available depends on your Maps usage and settings. A place missing from Maps does not prove that the iPhone was never there.
Google Maps Timeline is a separate system
If you use Google Maps and enabled Timeline, location history may be associated with that Google feature rather than Apple’s Significant Locations. Open Google Maps and review Timeline using Google’s controls. Its retention and backup behavior is governed by your Google settings.
Location Services is not a history viewer
The Location Services permission list tells you which apps can request location and under what conditions. It does not expose a master chronological log of every location request. Review permissions there when your concern is privacy rather than reconstructing past travel.
For an important historical record
If you need location information for legal, employment, safety, or other consequential reasons, do not assume one consumer history screen is complete. Preserve the available records and identify which app, account, carrier, photograph, or other service actually generated the location evidence you need.
Photos can provide another clue
Photos taken with location access can contain location metadata. Open a photo and view its information to see whether a place was saved with that image. This is useful for reconstructing a trip from your own photographs, but it is still not a continuous record of where the iPhone traveled between pictures.
Matthew Roberts created this site to help his friends and family with questions that they might have about how to change the settings on their iPhones. It now serves as an archive of iPhone how-to guides to help anyone that stumbles upon this website.