Do you ever wonder how the heck did people travel before all this technology existed to help them plan it out?! Because same. I can’t imagine booking plane tickets, getting lost in the streets of a foreign city, or figuring out where to grab a decent bite to eat without the tech I so depend on while traveling nowadays – especially as a solo female traveler. Luckily for us modern-day travelers, we can get practical tips and safety advice for travel with a simple tap on our smartphones. Read on for my compilation of the top 23 apps for solo female travel.
I’ve divided my top-pick apps into:
- Apps for solo female travelers to meet other people
- Apps for solo travel safety
- Apps for planning solo female travel
- Apps for transport
- Apps for solo travel accommodation
- Apps for practical needs
Apps for solo travelers to meet other people
Tourlina
Available on iOS and Android
Picture this: you just landed in Paris alone after dreaming of visiting there for years. You spend a glorious first few days enjoying the city, but you start to feel a little lonely by the 3rd or 4th day alone.
Tourlina is here to help! It’s a women-only app that safely connects female travelers around the world. All you have to do is create an account, enter your destination + the dates you’re there, and some interests of yours and the app will connect you with a kickass woman with similar interests in the same city!
You can even input your travel plans months in advance so you can connect with other women before you even arrive, and plan your trip together if you want. Each member of Tourlina has to be verified, so you know you’re meeting up with real, awesome women.
I’m sure if you’re reading this you can agree that solo travel is one hell of an incredible, empowering experience. But sometimes it’s just nice to share travel experiences with a companion to amplify your enjoyment. Tourlina comes in as an app for solo female travelers to meet up and share what the world has to offer together.
Backpackr
Available on iOS and Android
This app has the same general idea as Tourlina, but opens it up to all genders.
Backpackr a social media platform where you can connect with other travelers by destination. If you feel a vibe after a few messages, you can choose to meet up for a beer or tour the city together. As always, keep safety at the top of your mind when meeting new people in new places.
The coolest feature of this app in my opinion is the Common Room, where you can pose questions to the community about certain destinations. I often have very specific questions before traveling to a new place, like if there are taxis available at night time or if there is an ATM in town. The Common Room is exactly where you can ask these destination-specific questions and get helpful responses.
Eatwith
Available on iOS and Android
Dining alone takes some getting used to! I’m a little ashamed to admit that on my first few solo trips, I ate at exclusively take-out restaurants to avoid dining alone at a sit-down restaurant. (Now I love it and recommend every woman to take herself on that fancy date! Bring a book or a travel journal é voila, a wonderful solo date night)!
*But* if dining solo isn’t your thing, there’s an app for that! Eatwith pairs you with a local from destinations around the globe for an authentic dining experience.
It works like this: you sign up and select your destination. Then you browse the list of hand-picked “hosts” and what unique dining experience they have on offer. Shoot your favorite host a message and choose your preferred date and you’re good to go! They have all sorts of dining experiences on there ranging from food tours, dinner parties, and cooking classes.
Related: How to Take Amazing Photos of Yourself While Solo Traveling
Safety apps for solo female travel
BSafe
Available on iOS and Android
If you’ve found yourself in a situation where you have to walk alone at night time in a place you don’t feel safe – BSafe gives you an extra layer of security.
You can input your walk home in the app and have your guardian (a person you set in the app, like a friend or a parent) follow your live location to ensure you got back safe. You can also live-stream your walk to your guardian so they see and hear everything in real-time.
The SOS feature can be literally life-saving. If you’re walking home and encounter a safety issue, you can voice-activate or press a button to activate the SOS feature which then automatically records video and audio of your surroundings.
You can also place “fake calls” through the app that will have your phone call itself – to help get you out of tricky scenarios.
This is a must-have app for solo female travel and going about your daily life at home too.
Rescuer
Available on Android
Another app that makes you feel safe and connected no matter where you are in the world. Much like BSafe, you input a trusted loved-one in the app. Then there’s all sorts of features that allow you to contact them in case a sketchy scenario arises.
How it works: You customize a keyphrase in the app, and anytime you say that out loud Rescuer will immediately send an emergency message to your pre-set contact. The message includes your GPS coordinates and photos of the surroundings without you pressing a single button.
If it’s unsafe to speak out loud but you have your phone in hand, you can press the volume button and Rescuer will automatically initiate the same safety features mentioned above.
The only downside to this app is that it’s only available for Android devices.
Trip Whistle
Available on iOS
Emergencies happen – both at home and abroad. How do you get in contact with emergency services in foreign countries? There are over 70 different emergency numbers in the 196 countries of the world, and it’s hard to memorize all of the relevant destinations for you if you’re country-hopping or backpacking for several months.
That’s where Trip Whistle comes in. My greatest hope is that no solo female traveler ever has to use this app in an emergency, but unfortunately, it’s essential. Trip Whistle provides you with the emergency numbers of all countries in the worlds so you can make that important call as quickly as possible.
Sitata Travel Safe
Available on iOS and Android
This app is super handy for informing you about any safety concerns in the countries in your itinerary. Since safety situations are always changing around the world, it can be hard to stay up-to-date. Sitata solves this traveler dilemma.
How it works: you input your destinations with the dates you’re going to be there. The app then brings you to a page where you can check the safety alerts, where nearby hospitals are, what vaccinations you may need for your trip, etc. You can also input your flight details so Sitata can inform you about potential issues with your flight, like delays or cancellations.
This app is always in my arsenal while traveling. It alerted me of civil unrest in Nicaragua that would impact my upcoming trip, so I changed my plans. I even keep it on my phone while I live abroad in the Netherlands to alert me of any safety concerns I should know about.
Safeture
Available on iOS and Android
This app has the same idea as Sitata above, but it’s aimed at business travelers.
It provides real-time safety updates for potential travel disruptions, weather conditions, political and civil unrest, and terrorism threats in your travel destinations.
Because you need a subscription ID to sign up for Safeture (likely provided by your employer), I recommend Sitata over Safeture as an app for solo female travel. If you travel a lot for work, this is definitely an app you should make your employer aware of to help ensure your trips go safely and smoothly.
GeoSure
Available on iOS and Android
Like a lot of the other apps on this list, GeoSure alerts you of safety concerns in your chosen destination.
What’s fantastic about this app though is that it gives a safety rating (out of 100) for each location – complete with sub-ratings for nighttime safety, theft, health & medical safety, LGBTQ+ safety, women’s safety, etc.
What’s even better is that you can zoom into very specific parts of a city for safety ratings by neighborhood. For example, my city Amsterdam has an overall safety rating of 71, but when you zoom into the Red Light District part of the city, the rating goes slightly down to 69. This is an invaluable feature that can help you choose which areas to avoid when choosing accommodation or just wandering around the city.
As a traveler using the app, you also can click to share your own safety experiences in a given city to contribute to future travelers’ safety.
Related: Solo Travel in South America: 8 Safety Tips I Wish I Knew Before My Trip
Transportation apps for solo female travel
Google Maps
Available on iOS and Android
This one is obvious, but maybe not so obvious is the offline maps feature. Nowadays it’s pretty easy to find international cell plans that cover you anywhere in the world, but in the case that you don’t have phone service on your trips – this feature comes in handy.
While connected to data/WiFi, you can download the city map of pretty much any place in the world so it’s stored on your phone. Then, when you’re lost in Prague and can’t find free WiFi, you can still route yourself from Charles Bridge to Old Town Square.
To make use of this feature, open the app and click the icon image of you in the top-right corner. Click on ‘offline maps’ and select the city you’d like to download. All done!
Rome2Rio
Available on iOS and Android
Getting between Rome and Florence is super straightforward – you have a variety of plane, train, and bus options. But have you ever been in an off-the-beaten track destination and wondered how to get to your next stop?
Rome2Rio has been so helpful to me for these situations for many years now. All you have to do is input your location ‘A’ and ‘B’ and the app provides you with all sorts of potential routes. It shows you all the different combinations of routes you could take with estimated prices and travel times for each.
Once you’ve picked your preferred route, Rome2Rio takes you straight to the booking platform to buy your tickets. This is an invaluable app for solo female travelers to discover the best way to get from point A to B.
SkyScanner
Available on iOS and Android
With many travel booking platforms out there, SkyScanner sticks out for its ease of use and features that make your budget travel dreams come true.
You can search and book flights from anywhere in the world on this platform. I’ve exclusively booked my trips with SkyScanner for almost 10 years.
But what’s even cooler about SkyScanner are the features that can save you some serious money $$$. When inputting a date of departure, try tapping on the “whole month” feature to find which days have the cheapest tickets. If you’re really flexible, you can also tap “cheapest month” and you’ll see when to book the cheapest tickets over the entire year.
One of my favorite additional features is the “everywhere” destination feature. You input your departure airport and then press the “everywhere” button in the destinations tab. The results page will show you where the cheapest place to fly to from your location is. For example, if you’re departure destination is Madrid Barajas and you use this feature, you’ll see that you can fly to Ireland for just $34 USD and Portugal for $85 USD.
Once I was in London and deciding where to go next. I used the “everywhere” destinations feature and found that there was a flight leaving to Ibiza, Spain that weekend for… wait for it… only $9 USD! Are you kidding me!? That’s cheaper than what I spent on my lunch that day. I booked it right away.
Expedia, Kayak, and Google Flights are all similar booking platforms, but SkyScanner has always been my go-to because it was the pioneer of these awesome money-saving features.
Local public transportation apps
Most major cities around the world have dedicated apps for their public transportation city. Often these apps include route planners, timetables, and prices for your intended journeys. They’re almost always free (I’ve never encountered one that required payment to download).
Make a simple Google search for “public transportation app [insert city here]” and you can see the options for your destination. Download the app and use it during your trip, then easily delete it off your phone when you’ve left. Easy peasy!
Apps for planning solo female travel
PackPoint Travel Packing List
Available on iOS and Android
This app basically packs your bags for you. It’s one of those apps that you don’t realize how much you were missing it until you start using it!
You can input your destination, departure data, number of nights, + a bunch of other options like whether it’s a business or leisure trip, activities you plan on doing, if you’ll have access to laundry, and more. Based off of all this data, it curates a packing list for you.
PackPoint is so helpful and such a time-saver for the on-the-go solo female traveler.
Sygic Travel
Available on iOS and Android
Researching for a trip is literally probably half of the fun of traveling for me. I love spending hours finding the must-visit places, hidden gems, and best places to eat in each city that I visit.
Travel planning can be overwhelming though! There’s what seems like an endless amount of information out there and it can be tough to know where to start. That’s where Sygic comes in.
Sygic features an digital map of your destination city, complete with the pinned locations to find the best attractions (think monuments, museums, waterfalls, beaches), hotels, restaurants, and shops. The app has over 50 million of these places from destinations all around the globe.
The app also has a “trip builder” feature where you can plan all your must-visit places. It shows you the travel distance between each place so you can easily plan your whole day using this single app.
It is such a time-saving app for solo female travel.
Accommodation apps for solo female travel
HostelWorld
Available on iOS and Android
HostelWorld has been my go-to app for accommodation while solo traveling for almost 10 years now. Hostels are hands down the best way to meet other travelers while solo!
HostelWorld is an easy-to-use booking platform with tens of thousands of accommodations around the world. All you do is input your destination, your preferred dates, and find a list of hostels available in the area complete with ratings and reviews from other travelers.
Keep in mind: while booking a solo trip, look for reviews that mention a hostel being “good” or “bad” for solo travelers. For example, party hostels are typically a very open place to meet other people, but other hostels are set-up without common rooms or an emphasis on community, so you’re maybe less likely to make friends that way. Read the reviews and pick the vibe you’re looking for as a solo female traveler!
CouchSurfing
Available on iOS and Android
CouchSurfing is a *free* accommodation app where you basically connect with locals who want to offer up their couch or extra bed for incoming travelers to sleep in free of charge. The idea is that both you and the host get a fun cultural exchange out of it.
I’ve met people who absolutely swear by CouchSurfing. They speak of the amazing connections they made with their host and how they’ve remained friends with them years and years later. I’ve also heard horror stories about CouchSurfing hosts who made sexual advances on guests.
Admittedly, I’ve never personally used CouchSurfing because I’m scared of the latter happening.
Use precaution while finding a place to sleep on CouchSurfing. Read other travelers’ reviews and use good judgment about where you choose to stay. If you feel unsafe at all during your stay, use one of the safety apps on her to contact help.
AirBnB
Available on iOS and Android
AirBnb is another fantastic app for solo female travelers who want to connect with locals on their trips.
I’m sure you’ve heard of it before, but the idea is that locals’ put up spare bedrooms in their house for rent and you stay with them for a set price, often creating genuine friendships with your hosts during the experience.
I’ve had nothing but lovely experiences with AirBnb, like the time I did a walking tour of Cartagena with a Colombian host, or the Honduran mother who nursed me back to health in her home after I got a bout of food poisoning.
AirBnB recently released an AirBnb Experiences feature where you can book all sorts of different travel adventures like cooking classes, animal sanctuary visits, boat tours, etc led by local hosts.
You can also book out entire homes on AirBnb if you’re looking for a more private experience.
Apps for practical needs while solo traveling
Google Translate
Available on iOS and Android
A translater is a 100% must-need app for solo female travel. Need to buy a metro ticket in Japan but don’t know how to begin to ask the cashier for it? How about asking the waiter for the best local beer recommendation in Montenegro? I’ve relied on a translater for these scenarios and so much more while solo traveling.
English is spreading around the world as a global language, yes. But some of the most special destinations I’ve visited have been non-English speaking and you just have to adapt. I’ve ended up making lovely connections even with a language barrier all because we had a good translater app handy.
Again, it’s an absolute necessity!
XE Currency
Available on iOS and Android
One of the very first stories my parents told me as I got bit by the travel bug was the time they accidentally spend $3,000 USD on a small clock from an artisan clockmaker in Switzerland. They didn’t understand the exchange rate. Now it’s a beautiful conversation piece in their home, but at the time I’m sure it hurt.
I’ve made the same mistake a few times too – once I bought a Turkish rug for $200 USD because I didn’t compute the currency in my head correctly. $200 is a hefty price tag when you’re on a backpacker’s budget!
XE Currency comes in to prevent these spending mistakes. You can plug in your home country’s currency and quickly see what the exchange rate is in any country.
There’s a lot of similar currency calculators on the market but this is the favorite that I’ve used for years.
WiFi Finder + Map
Available on iOS and Android
I knowwww you’ve felt the pain of wandering around a city trying to mooch some free WiFi from a cafe. I sure have. This app solves that problem!
WiFi Finder + Map allows you to download an offline map for your destination. The map features all the WiFi sources in the city, categorized by hotel, bar, cafe, restaurant, etc so you can pick where you’d prefer to go.
It’s not free – it costs $4.49 for 3 months or $7.99 for a year-long subscription.
Flush – Toilet Finder & Map
Available on iOS and Android
There are few more uncomfortable feelings while traveling when you gotta use the bathroom ASAP but cannot find one anywhere around. Nature calls.
This free app has a list of nearly 100,000 public restrooms around the world. You can use the map’s interactive map feature to find the closest bathroom to you, plus see any associated costs and accessibility information too.
A cool, further feature is that you can rate and review the restrooms. Sure it seems funny to have an app to rate restrooms, but then think about the last time you arrived at a less-than-pleasant WC and had to beehive right out of there to find a different one.
Time Shifter
Available on iOS and Android
Looking to beat jet lag? The super helpful Time Shifter app uses the science of circadian rhythms to help you get back to a healthy sleep schedule while traveling.
How it works: You input your travel journey and the app gives you advice on how to forego jet lag. This includes pre-travel tips (like adapting to a slightly different sleep schedule to prepare your body for time changes), when to take naps (and when to push through the sleepiness so you can adapt faster), what tricks to use to fall asleep once you’ve arrived in your new destination, and more.
It was created by scientists so all of the recommendations can be trusted. NASA even uses it for their astronauts!
Conclusion: Best Apps for Solo Female Travel
There you have it, ladies. If you’re heading out on a trip by yourself soon, I hope this post was helping in finding this best apps for solo female travel. It’s all here: safety apps, transportation apps, accommodation apps, planning apps, practical needs apps, and apps for solo female travelers to meet other people.
I’d love to hear about your go-to travel apps in the comments!
