Most travellers download two apps before a trip: Google Maps and Google Translate. They are great apps. They are also not enough.
The phone in your pocket is, in 2026, the most powerful piece of safety equipment ever to fit in a pocket. Set up properly, it can warn you of an incident before it reaches the news, find you in an emergency when you can't describe where you are, translate a medical emergency in real time, and route a payment to your hotel when your wallet has just been stolen. Set up poorly, it does almost none of that.
The 10 apps below are the ones we install on every device before we travel. Most are free, most take less than a minute to set up.
1. Warnely – real-time safety alerts
Country-level travel advisories from governments update on a timescale of weeks. News apps update on a timescale of hours. In a real incident – a terror attack, an earthquake, a sudden political crisis – the window that matters is the first 30 minutes. Warnely is the alert layer for that window: city- and incident-level push notifications that tell you what's happening near you, fast enough to act on. Free, works globally, no setup beyond installing it. (Yes, this is our app – but the category matters whether you use ours or someone else's. Don't travel without something in this slot.)
2. Google Maps (with offline maps downloaded)
Online navigation is table stakes. Offline navigation is the safety feature. Before you travel, open Google Maps, search the cities you'll visit, and download the offline area for each. Offline maps work without data, without Wi-Fi, and without battery-draining background processes. They've quietly saved more travellers than almost any other app.
3. What3words – precise location sharing
Every three-metre square in the world has a unique three-word address. In an emergency, "I'm at filled.count.soap" is dramatically more useful than "I'm somewhere on the south side of the river near a yellow building". Used by emergency services in over 75 countries. Free.
4. Find My / Google Maps live location – passive sharing
Continuous location sharing with one or two trusted people, set up before you travel and forgotten about. If you go silent, they know where you last were. iPhone users get Find My free; Android users get Google Maps' "share location" feature. Either way, the rule is the same: turn it on before you leave home, not when something has already gone wrong.
5. Signal or WhatsApp – encrypted communication
For genuinely sensitive communications – political situations, sensitive work, anything you wouldn't want intercepted – Signal is the gold standard. WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption is good enough for the overwhelming majority of travellers. Either way, the principle: don't send anything important over SMS abroad. SMS is unencrypted and routed through whatever networks the country provides.
6. Google Translate (with offline languages downloaded)
Like Maps, the offline mode is the upgrade. Download the languages you'll need before you travel. Camera mode translates printed signs in real time – restaurant menus, road signs, pharmacy labels, train station displays. Conversation mode handles spoken back-and-forth well enough for medical and emergency situations. Free.
7. Airalo or Holafly – eSIM data
A flat phone is a safety failure. A phone with no data is one bureaucratic hurdle away from being a flat phone. eSIMs let you install a local data plan in 60 seconds at the gate without hunting for a SIM card vendor. Airalo and Holafly cover most countries for £10–20 per trip. Set it up before you fly.
8. Wise (or Revolut) – multi-currency banking
Cards get blocked. Cards get cloned. Cards get lost. A backup card on a different network, with multi-currency support and instant freeze/unfreeze controls, sits in your bag for the day you need it. Wise and Revolut both offer this; pick one and load it before you travel.
9. Citymapper or local equivalent – public transit
For cities where public transit matters (London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, Berlin, Singapore, and many others), Citymapper is dramatically better than Google Maps for navigating it. Real-time disruptions, walking-plus-transit routing, and clear "exit at this end of the platform" instructions. Where Citymapper isn't available, the local equivalent (Moovit covers most of the gap) is worth more than the marginal effort.
10. Your country's embassy registration app
The UK has the FCDO Travel Advice service. The US has the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP). Most countries have an equivalent. Registering takes five minutes and means your government knows you're in the country if anything happens – earthquake, evacuation, civil unrest. The marginal effort is trivial; the upside in the rare cases that matter is significant.
The setup discipline
The apps only work if they're set up properly, before you leave. The 15-minute pre-trip routine:
Install all 10 apps. Download offline maps for every city you'll visit. Download offline languages for every language you'll need. Activate live location sharing with one or two contacts. Set up your eSIM and confirm it works. Register with your embassy. Test your Emergency SOS by holding the buttons for two seconds (long enough to feel them, not long enough to actually trigger it). Charge your power bank.
Most travellers do none of this and rely on hope.
What's deliberately not on this list
VPNs, password managers, and two-factor authentication apps are essential for digital security but aren't safety apps in the physical sense – they belong in a different post. Personal SOS apps that contact the police directly are a US-centric category that doesn't translate well internationally; emergency services don't use them. "Safety walking" apps that notify a contact if you don't reach a destination are a niche use case; live location sharing covers the same ground better.
The 10 above are the core. Everything else is optional.