Location-based startup Gowalla is shutting its doors, the company announced on its homepage.

As noted by TheNextWeb, which was first to report the news, the message says: "Thank you for going out with Gowalla. It was a pleasure to journey with you around the world. Download your check-ins, photos, and lists here soon."

The check-in service, dwarfed by Foursquare, was acquired by Facebook in December after several months of rumors. At the time, Gowalla's co-founder Josh Williams said in a blog post that the service would be "winding down" by January.

The ball first got rolling on the Facebook deal when Williams and fellow co-founder Scott Raymond attended Facebook's f8 developer conference.

"We were blown away by Facebook's new developments," Williams wrote. "A few weeks later Facebook called, and it became clear that the way for our team to have the biggest impact was to work together. So we're excited to announce that we'll be making the journey to California to join Facebook."

Williams, Raymond, and the Gowalla team moved to Facebook in January to join the social network's design and engineering team.

Facebook's acquisition of Gowalla did not include user data, so those who did not delete their information don't need to worry that Facebook has tracked their previous check-ins.

Gowalla was founded in 2009 and raised about $10 million in funding from Greylock Partners and various angel investors. For a trip down memory lane, see PCMag's review of Gowalla for iPhone and the slideshow below.