Travelling offline: what to download before a trip

Search for what to download before a trip and you get a list of apps: a map, a translator, something to watch on the plane. The apps are fine. What the lists leave out is when you will actually be without a connection, and what you will need at that exact moment. That is what decides what goes on your phone before you leave the Wi-Fi at home.

An offline map you never opened in airplane mode is not an offline map. It is a download bar you are trusting.

Download by moment, not by app

Most trips are not offline all the time. They are offline in short, predictable stretches, and those stretches tend to fall at the worst possible moments:

• The first hour after landing. The new SIM is not active yet, the eSIM did not switch over, roaming is off to save money, and you need to get from the airport to a bed.
• Underground and inside thick walls. Metro stations, old churches, museum basements, the lower floors of a market.
• The day out of town. A valley, a coast road, a train through the mountains: the day trip is where coverage drops and where getting lost costs most.
• A phone that is on but useless. Data has run out, the network is congested at a big event, or the battery is at four per cent.

So go through your plan day by day and ask a simpler question than which app to install: at each of these moments, what would I need to see on the screen? The answers are the list.

What to download before a trip: the short list

• Maps of every area in the plan, not just the city centre: the airport and the road in, the station, and every place you go for the day.
• The route from arrival to bed, written down: which train or bus, where to change, the stop to get off at, and the last few hundred metres on foot.
• The address of where you are sleeping, also in the local script if it uses another alphabet, so you can show it to a driver.
• Tickets and booking confirmations as files: boarding passes, train tickets, timed entries, the accommodation booking with its phone number.
• The plan for each day: the stops in order, their addresses, how you get between them, and the times you checked.
• A language pack for your translation app, so the camera can read a menu or a sign without a signal.
• One page of emergency details: insurance number, card-blocking numbers, the local emergency number, your embassy.

Films and podcasts for the flight are welcome too, but they are comfort, not safety. Do them last, after everything above is done.

Offline maps: what they do and what they do not

A saved map area is the heart of travelling offline, and it is more limited than it looks. Your position on the map still works, because the GPS in your phone needs no data. Walking and driving directions inside the saved area usually work too. What usually does not:

• Public transport routes and timetables. Many map apps cannot plan a metro or bus journey without a connection, so save the network map and your key routes separately.
• Live information: delays, closures, traffic, whether a place is busy right now.
• Reliable search. Finding a restaurant by name offline is hit and miss. Save or star every stop in your plan while you are still online, and you find them by tapping, not by typing.
• Fresh opening hours. What the map shows offline is what it knew when you downloaded it.

Saved areas also expire after a while and take space on the phone, so download them in the last few days before leaving, on Wi-Fi, and make each area slightly larger than you think you need. The edge of a saved map is always exactly where you took a wrong turn.

The logins that lock you out

The most frustrating offline failure is not a missing map. It is a ticket you cannot open because the app wants you to sign in again, and signing in wants a code.

• Open every app that holds a ticket or a booking before you leave, sign in, and check that the ticket shows. Then save it outside the app too, as a PDF, a wallet pass or a screenshot of the code.
• Think about where your security codes arrive. Banks and many services send them by text to your home number. If you swap your SIM for a local one, those texts may not reach you, so find out beforehand how you will receive them: a second SIM, an eSIM alongside your own, or an authenticator app set up at home.
• Write down the passwords you will need for anything you rarely use, such as the airline account or the car hire, somewhere you can reach without the internet.

Roaming, local SIMs and eSIMs, and when to sort them out, are part of the wider pre-trip list in what to check before travelling abroad, and when. Here the point is narrower: whatever connection you end up with, the things you cannot do without should not depend on it.

Keep the plan itself offline

People download the map and forget the itinerary. Then they stand in a square knowing where they are, but not where they were going next or whether it closes at five.

For each day, the offline version of the plan needs the stops in order, an address for each one, how you get from one to the next, any time that matters (a timed ticket, a last entry, a table) and one fallback nearby. A screenshot per day is the minimum. A document or a saved trip that opens without a signal is better, because you can search it and it does not get lost among four hundred photos.

If you plan with Traveley, Pro keeps your saved trips readable offline and lets you export each one as a printable PDF. Whatever you use, the test is the same: does tomorrow's plan open with the phone in airplane mode?

Test it in airplane mode the night before you leave

This takes ten minutes and catches almost everything. At home, with the phone in airplane mode and Wi-Fi off:

• Open the map and plan the walk from the arrival station or airport exit to where you are sleeping.
• Open every ticket and boarding pass, one by one.
• Open the plan for day one and day two.
• Translate one sentence and point the camera at some printed text.
• Find the emergency page.

Anything that fails, fix it now, while you still have Wi-Fi and time. The airport is the worst place to discover that a map only half downloaded. If you land at an awkward hour, how to plan arrival day after a long flight covers the rest of what that first stretch needs.

None of it works on a dead phone

Navigating offline leans on GPS and a bright screen, and both drain the battery faster than a normal day at home. A full charge in the morning can be gone by mid-afternoon on a day out.

• Carry a power bank and its cable, and check your airline's rules for taking one on board.
• Turn on battery saver on long days out, and lower the screen brightness.
• Keep two things on paper as well: the address of where you are sleeping and one phone number you can call from any phone.

Paper sounds old-fashioned until the phone dies on the way back at night. Then it is the only part of the plan that still works.

Before you leave the Wi-Fi: a checklist

• Maps saved for every area in the plan, including the airport and the day trips.
• Every stop of the plan saved or starred on the map.
• The route from arrival to bed written down, with the address in the local script.
• Tickets and bookings saved as files, outside the apps that issued them.
• A way to receive security codes while you are away.
• The plan for each day readable offline.
• A translation language pack.
• An emergency page, and two lines on paper.
• The airplane-mode test, passed.

None of it needs a special app. It needs an evening at home and the plan in front of you, which is the only way to know what each day will ask of your phone when the signal is gone.