How can we help?

Yes — that's the whole idea. Once a country is on your device, everything in it works with no connection at all: phrases and audio, maps, dishes, emergency numbers, the lot. The only things that want a connection are live currency rates and Apple Maps tiles, and both fall back to what they last cached.

Open the country once while you have a connection. Its content comes down with it and stays on your device until you delete the app.

Press and hold an empty part of your home screen, tap the + in the corner, and search for "Survival Kit" — that's how the app is named on your device. There are three widgets available:

• The large widget carries the most — currency, times, and one-tap shortcuts to phrases, apps, and the country page. Most travellers pick this one.
• The medium widget shows a wider currency conversion table.
• The small widget is a compact currency square for tight spaces.

Set your country in the app first — the widget needs somewhere to point.

The converter uses European Central Bank reference rates, refreshed when you have a connection and cached so it keeps working when you don't. Two things follow from that. If you've been offline, you're seeing the last rate we managed to fetch — open the app with a connection to refresh it. And in any case a reference rate is not what you'll actually be charged: your bank, your card, and the bureau on the corner all take their cut. Treat it as a sanity check, not a quote.

40 at present, across six regions — Europe, Southeast Asia, East Asia, the Americas, the Middle East & Africa, and South Asia. The full list, region by region, is on the Country Survival Kit page.

Two whole countries — Hungary and Malaysia — completely free. Not a trial or a teaser: every section, every entry requirement, offline, exactly the same as any paid country. It's there so you can see precisely what the app is before you decide to pay.

We'd rather add a country properly than list it, so they arrive in considered batches. Six regions are live now; Oceania is the one still to come, and every live region keeps growing. We won't promise dates we can't keep — but do email and tell us where you're going. It genuinely affects the order.

None, in what you get — both unlock all 40 countries and everything added later. It's purely how you pay: $19.99 a year, or $59.99 once and it's yours with no renewal. Pick whichever suits how you travel.

The catalogue keeps growing, and the price may rise as it does. But subscribers keep the price they joined at — you're held at that rate as the app expands, however much it grows. The $59.99 one-time purchase is a one-time price by definition.

Subscriptions renew automatically each year unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the renewal date. To cancel: Settings → tap your name at the top → Subscriptions → Country Survival Kit → Cancel. You keep access until the end of the period you've already paid for. One thing worth knowing: deleting the app does not cancel the subscription.

Refunds are handled by Apple rather than by us. Go to reportaproblem.apple.com, sign in, and choose the purchase. If you think something is actually broken, email us first — we would rather fix it.

Country Survival Kit requires iOS 17 or later. It works on iPhone and iPad. Widgets require the same minimum.