How the guide works.

Getting access

The guide is free to read. Access reaches you in one of three ways:

• Through your employer or relocation company. Your mobility team or relocation consultant sends you an access code or adds your email address to their licence. Sign in with that email and the guide opens on their edition.
• Through a school. Some international schools provide the guide to families they are admitting and to teachers they are recruiting. The school gives you a code.
• Directly. Where direct sign-up is open, you create an account with your email address from the app’s first screen.

If a code does not work, check that you are signing in with the email address it was issued to, and that the code has not expired; then write to the person who gave it to you, or to support.

Signing in

There are no passwords. Enter your email address and we send a one-time code; enter the code and you are in. The code is valid for a few minutes and works once. If it does not arrive, check your junk folder and that the address is spelt as your organisation registered it. Signing in on a new device is the same; you can be signed in on more than one device at once.

Editions and organisations

Every edition of the guide carries the same neutral core: the same articles, the same listings, the same descriptions. An organisation that provides the guide may add its own front section — a welcome, its own policies and documents — which is kept separate and labelled. It cannot change the guide itself. If your organisation’s edition looks different from a colleague’s, that front section is the only difference.

Reading offline

Each city can be downloaded as a package for reading without a connection — on the flight, on the look-see trip, in a lift. Open the city, choose Download for offline, and the app tells you the size before it starts. Articles, listings and maps of listings work offline. Video needs a connection, and the app says so on the panel rather than leaving a blank space. Downloaded packages are updated when you are next online.

Languages

The guide is published in English, with Vietnamese for Ho Chi Minh City; French, German, Japanese, Korean and Chinese editions follow as each is completed and checked. Every language edition is post-edited by a named native speaker before it is published, and every edition says the same things: a hard fact is never softened in translation. Venue names, addresses and curriculum names are never translated. Change language from the reader’s menu; your place in the guide is kept.

Devices

The guide runs on iPhone, iPad and Android phones and tablets on current and recent operating-system versions, and as a web edition for organisations. It is designed as a two-page spread on a tablet held sideways, which is the way it reads best; on a phone it shows one page at a time. Text size is fixed so that every page is set as the editor set it; use your device’s zoom for larger type.

Reading the guide

The guide turns pages rather than scrolling. Swipe or use the arrows to turn; open the contents from the menu; tap a heading’s eye symbol, where one appears, for a short box of verified facts about that topic. A listing shows a venue’s description, address and the buttons that take you to its map, website and social channels; where a venue has more than one location, a small arrow lets you pick the branch. Tapping a description that has been shortened to fit expands it.

The assistant

The guide has a built-in assistant that answers questions from the guide itself — the verified articles and listings — and cites where the answer came from and when it was checked. It does not search the internet, and if the guide does not cover something it says so rather than guessing. Your questions are used to answer you and are not used to train anything.

Reporting an error

Every listing carries a Report control. Use it for a venue that has closed, moved or changed, or for anything in an article you believe is wrong, and we check it against the venue’s own source before changing the guide. You can also write to support.

Your account and data

Your account holds your email address, the organisation that provided your access, and your reading activity, which keeps your place and lets us report to that organisation, in aggregate, that the guide is being read. What we collect and why is set out in What the app collects. You can delete your account from Account → Delete my account in the app or from the account deletion page; deletion is complete within thirty days.

Notifications

Notifications are optional and off until you turn them on. They tell you when a city package has been updated or a new edition is available. Turn them off again at any time in the app or in your device settings; nothing in the guide requires them.

Help centre · Updated 2 September 2026