The first few weeks in a new city are the ones where your family worries most and you know least. The best approach for moving to a new city is boring and sensible: let two people know where you live and how you travel, share your location with them for a while, learn your routes in daylight, and be careful about who else gets your details. Then relax the plan as you settle.

Day one: tell two people the basics

Before the boxes are unpacked, send two people your full address, the nearest landmark and a photo of the gate or building. One should be family and the other a friend or a colleague who isn’t in the same house. If something goes wrong in week one and you can’t explain where you are, those messages are the first thing anyone will look for.

Save a few numbers somewhere that doesn’t need your phone’s battery: write the two people’s numbers, your landlord’s and the local emergency number on a card in your wallet. It feels old-fashioned and it works when a phone doesn’t.

Share your location for a set period, not forever

For the first month, many people find it easier on everyone if family can see where they are. Your mother stops asking whether you reached, and you stop writing a report each evening. The condition is that it’s your choice and has an end date. Say “let’s review this after a month” out loud and put it in your calendar.

In Traxl you create a Circle, invite the people you want and everyone in it can see who else is there. The free plan allows one Circle of up to three people, which is enough for two family members and you. You can pause, or leave, at any time, and sharing with that Circle ends immediately. For the practical side of choosing, see our guide to building a trusted circle.

Tip: Your privacy matters as much as your safety

Sharing with family is not the same as sharing with a new flatmate, a colleague, a landlord or someone you met on a dating app. You don’t owe your location to anyone because they asked nicely. If someone you’ve known for a week asks for it, you can say, “I only share that with family for now.”

Learn the routes before you need them

Walk or ride the way to the metro, the market, the pharmacy and the nearest hospital once or twice in daylight, with no hurry. Notice which lanes are lit at night, where shops stay open late and where autos wait. This is dull advice and probably the most useful in the post. Save the places you visit often, such as your room and your office, in your map app, and use an arrival alert in Traxl for the one that matters most, usually home.

Be slow about giving out details

New cities mean new forms: the broker, the PG, the gym, a delivery app. Give the address a form needs and nothing more. Keep your home address off social profiles, and think about what a location tag on a photo says about the place you’re staying. If a landlord or a co-tenant gets curious about your timings, you can answer the question without handing over a schedule.

For students, the extra pieces that come with a hostel are covered in our post on hostel and PG safety.

Keep a routine your family can picture

Nothing reassures a worried parent like knowing your day. Pick one fixed moment, perhaps a message after dinner, and stick to it for the first fortnight. It sounds small, but a regular “all fine, early start tomorrow” takes the place of a dozen anxious calls. On the days you can’t manage it, a one-tap “I’m safe” check-in from Traxl does the same job without typing.

Make friends in the same breath

A place feels safer when someone nearby knows your name. Find one neighbour, a colleague who lives close, or a classmate you can swap numbers with. Two people who know your normal day will notice sooner if it changes than a family two thousand kilometres away. That’s not something an app can supply.

Relaxing it after a month

When the review date arrives, talk it through. Maybe you drop the always-on sharing and keep arrival alerts. Maybe you keep sharing with one person and use a live link for late nights. The point of the review is to let the setup match how settled you feel now, not how nervous everyone was in week one.

If your worries are bigger than a new-city wobble, such as unwanted attention or a threat from someone you know, speak to a trusted person or the relevant authority. Traxl is not an emergency service or a counselling service; its SOS alerts the people in your Circle and needs a data connection, and it doesn’t call the police.

Traxl is a free Android app, with iPhone coming soon. It shares your location with the people you choose and nobody else, and it can’t do the part about making friends.