Travelling Alone Safely — A Check-In Safety Net With Your Location
A safety check-in app for people travelling alone lets you confirm “all OK” on your own schedule, and if you ever don’t, it alerts your trusted people back home — automatically, with your last location. Still OK works exactly like that: one tap says you’re fine. Miss your check-in, and your contacts are notified via WhatsApp, SMS and email, with your GPS location attached. It’s not live tracking — no one follows your route, your location is shared only if an alert fires. That’s what makes it suited to multi-day trips and solo hikes, where someone watching a live map in real time isn’t practical. No constant monitoring, GDPR-compliant and ad-free.
How your safety net works on the road
You set a check-in interval that fits your trip — once a day on a city break, once every morning before a hike. Before it runs out, the app reminds you to tap “All OK.” If you don’t, your trusted person is notified automatically, with your last location. Nothing happens in between: you actively check in, you’re never watched and never tracked. Still OK is a safety net, not a replacement for the emergency services — in an acute emergency, always call your local emergency number first.
Set up your travel safety net in 60 seconds
- Before you leave, add someone back home as your emergency contact and send them a test alert so they know what to expect.
- Choose a check-in interval that matches your trip — and turn on GPS location so an alert carries your last position.
- Travel. Check in each day with one tap. Miss it, and your contact is alerted via WhatsApp, SMS and email, with your location.
What matters when you travel alone
- Your location in an alert — if you miss a check-in, your last GPS position goes out with the alert, so your people know not just that something’s wrong, but roughly where. Shared only in an emergency, never as ongoing tracking.
- Flexible check-in intervals — daily, twice a day, every few days. Match it to your itinerary and time zone, so a long travel day or a remote stretch doesn’t trigger a false alarm.
- Multi-channel alerts — email, WhatsApp and SMS reach your contact at home whatever phone they use, even across borders.
- Pause mode for planned offline stretches — heading somewhere with no signal for a few days? Pause your protection with one tap, no false alarms, with automatic reactivation when you’re back.
- Ad-free & GDPR-compliant — all data in EU data centres, no ads, not even in the free version. Your trip is nobody’s product.
A check-in app, not a live-tracking companion
Companion apps that share your live location in real time — like a “get home safe” tracker your friend watches on a map — are great for a short walk home at night. But on a week-long trip or a full-day hike, no one is going to stare at a moving dot for hours, and constant location sharing drains your battery fast. Still OK takes the lighter approach: you check in once per interval, and your location only travels with an alert. It tells your people not just where you are, but that you’re okay — which is the part live tracking can’t answer.
A morning on the trail
Lena, 31, is three days into a solo hut-to-hut trek in the Norwegian fjords. Her sister Mara in Hamburg knows the rough route but can’t follow her on any map out here. Each morning Lena taps “All OK” before she sets off. On the fourth day she twists her ankle on a descent and can’t go on. Her evening check-in doesn’t come. The app reminds her twice; when there’s still no tap, Mara gets a message via WhatsApp and email with Lena’s last location — the trailhead she’d passed that afternoon. Mara calls the local mountain rescue with a place to start, instead of waiting days and not knowing where to send them.
It’s not about being afraid to travel alone. It’s about having a safety net while you do.
Frequently asked questions
Does this work without a signal — in a dead zone or out of coverage?
Honestly: no. Both checking in and sending an alert need your phone to have a connection. If you’ll be out of coverage for a while, choose a more generous interval, or use pause mode for a planned offline stretch so it doesn’t false-alarm. For genuine off-grid backcountry with no mobile signal at all, Still OK isn’t the right tool — see the question below.
Is this live tracking of my trip?
No. No one follows your route, and there’s no map of where you’ve been. Your location is shared once, and only if you miss a check-in and an alert fires. Between check-ins, nothing is sent and no one is watching.
Does it replace an emergency call or a satellite messenger for real backcountry?
No. For genuinely remote backcountry with no mobile coverage — high mountains, deserts, open water — a satellite messenger with a built-in SOS (like a Garmin inReach) or your phone’s emergency satellite SOS is the right tool, because they reach help where there’s no cell signal. Still OK is built for trips with at least intermittent coverage, and it never replaces calling your local emergency number in an acute emergency.
Do my emergency contacts need to install anything?
No. They’re reached via email, WhatsApp and SMS — no app required. They only need a phone. You can add more than one contact, so several people back home are notified at once.
What does it cost?
The basic version is free and ad-free: email alerts with one contact and a daily check-in. For travelling, Premium (€4.99/month or €34.99/year) is the better fit — it adds WhatsApp & SMS alerts, GPS location in the alert, flexible intervals and unlimited contacts.