Mobile apps may not necessarily make you safer when travelling solo

No mobile app is going to prevent a violent crime by a perpetrator who chooses to enact it

As I was writing this article, I was fortunate enough to be at a conference in Florence, Italy. Like a growing number of women who travel overseas, whether for work or leisure, many of the trips I’ve done in recent years have been alone. And as a digital criminologist (as well as a mobile app enthusiast), I’m certainly a convert to the practical usefulness of technologies for travel.

There are a wide variety of smartphone apps that certainly make travelling alone easier to navigate. Think offline maps, language translation, transport timetables, online ticket bookings, Uber, electronic banking, virtual