Questions

Because nothing needs one. Your trips, saved places and check-ins are kept on your phone, so there is nothing to sign in to and nothing on a server to protect. Read the privacy policy.

The app reads your approximate location once when you tap Check in, compares it with the town on the phone and then discards it. What is kept is the town and the day, for your passport and map. The only other time is when you tap Nearest hospital or Nearest pharmacy: the location goes into the Google Maps search, so that Maps looks around you, and nothing is kept. It never reads your location in the background and never sends it anywhere else.

No. There are no analytics, no ads and no crash reporting. A short log of recent errors stays on your phone and leaves it only if you choose to email it to us.

Yes, as a file you keep. Settings → Back up trips and saved places puts them in one file and opens your phone's share sheet, so you choose where it goes: your files, your own cloud storage or an email to yourself. On Android, Restore from a backup adds them back, and never replaces what is already there. The app turns off Android's automatic cloud backup on purpose, because the privacy policy promises nothing is uploaded; this file is how your trips move to a new phone. Check-ins are not in it, because a stamp in your passport has to mean you were there.

From named sources: Italy's emergency services list, the Automobile Club d'Italia, the law on Normattiva for public holidays, ferry operators' published timetables, Wikipedia, Wikidata and OpenStreetMap for places. Every source, by kind of fact.

Each fact is checked by hand against its source before it goes into the app. Travellers can send a correction from inside the app; it opens their own email, and the next update fixes it for everyone.

Because a town goes in only once its facts have been checked against their sources: its sights, how you can arrive, and a photo whose licence allows it. All 20 of Italy's regions are in the app, with 341 towns so far, and more towns are added as their sources are checked. To suggest one, write to the address at the foot of this page.

Because they change all the time, and a price or a time that was right last year sends someone to a closed door. The app links to each place's official site where there is one, and to its reviews on Google Maps.

Google Maps already knows today's roads and routes, and it works out where you are on its own, so the app never has to read your location for directions. The app draws two small maps itself, Italy for choosing a region and a sketch of each town's places, and neither downloads anything.

Not yet. Android comes first; an iOS version is planned.

There is no iOS beta yet. When there is, it will be linked from the front page of this site.

Eleven: English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Greek, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, the same as this website. The app follows your phone's language, and you can change it in Settings. Names of places, festivals and dishes stay in Italian, because that is what is on the signs and the menus.

Yes, for everything stored in the app: towns, sights, festivals, phrases, food words and your trips. Directions, bookings and the links to other services open other apps, and those need a connection.

From booking partners. When you book a stay, a ticket or a tour through a partner button in the app, the partner pays the app a small commission. There is also an optional way to support the project, which unlocks nothing.

Yes, on bookings made through a partner button, and the app says so where those buttons are. It costs you nothing extra and never changes which places are shown or their order. Some links, such as Airbnb's own search, earn nothing, and the app says that too.

There are no plans to. Either would change the privacy policy, and the policy on this site would say so before the app changed.

Search, every town and sight page with its photos, festivals, the phrasebook, the food glossary, your saved places and trips, your passport, and the emergency numbers to dial. Opening Google Maps, booking, and the community links need a connection.

Yes. Its 33 phrases are stored in the app, each with its meaning in your language, and Show displays a phrase full screen for someone to read. On Android, Listen reads it aloud with your phone's own Italian voice; the app uses only a voice installed on the phone, so that works offline too, and it tells you if none is installed.

Yes. The words you meet on menus and wine labels, and five dishes, cheeses or wines for each region, are stored in the app with a one-line description in your language.