Safe Trip vs Smartraveller
Smartraveller is the official travel-advisory service of the Australian government. It is the gold standard for what an authoritative, well-designed government advisory should look like, clear levels, plain English, region specific maps, and consular weight that no commercial product can replicate.
We are not trying to replace Smartraveller. We aggregate it, alongside the UK FCDO, US State Department, Canada’s travel.gc.ca, Germany’s Auswärtiges Amt, and France Diplomatie, then blend the consensus into a single daily score. Use both. They do different jobs.
What Smartraveller does that we don’t
- Authoritative consular policy for Australian citizens. Travel insurance, employer policies, and university study-abroad programs are often written directly around Smartraveller’s advisory levels.
- In-depth editorial commentary per country, written by Australian government officers with regional expertise.
- Smarttraveller registration, letting DFAT know where you’re travelling so they can assist in a crisis. This is a service of the Australian government and we link out to it.
- Free for the public.
What Safe Trip adds on top
- Multi-government view. Every country page shows Smartraveller, FCDO, State Department, travel.gc.ca, and the major European ministries side-by-side. When governments disagree, you see it immediately.
- Daily numeric score. A 0 to 100 number recomputed every morning from disease, conflict, disaster, crime, unrest, infrastructure, and the average of available advisories.
- Country comparisons, pick any two countries and see the differential side-by-side.
- Auditable methodology. Every score links to the events that produced it, with versioned algorithms.
- Mid-market duty-of-care tooling for organisations that travel staff internationally.
How they pair
For an Australian traveller booking a trip, the right workflow is:
- Open the Safe Trip country page for an at-a-glance multi source view of risk + the daily score.
- Click through to Smartraveller’s full advisory text for the authoritative Australian-government commentary and registration link.
- If you’re travelling to multiple countries, use Safe Trip’s comparison tools to plan the order.
- If you’re travelling on company business, Safe Trip for Teams gives your employer the duty-of-care record they need.
Frequently asked
Should I use Smartraveller or Safe Trip?
Both. If you're an Australian citizen, Smartraveller is your official, authoritative source, and travel insurance assumptions are written around it. Safe Trip aggregates Smartraveller alongside the UK FCDO, US State Department, travel.gc.ca, and the major German and French ministries, then synthesises a daily multi source score. They serve different jobs.
Is Smartraveller's data better than Safe Trip's?
Smartraveller is authoritative for Australian-government policy. Their advisories carry consular weight that ours can't. What Smartraveller doesn't do is aggregate other countries' advisories (it would be politically awkward), publish a daily numeric score, or surface a global comparison view. We do those things on top of Smartraveller's data, and credit Smartraveller as a primary source on every country page.
Do you respect the Smartraveller advisory level?
Yes. Government advisories are blended into the Safe Trip Score (currently 20% weight) and shown side-by-side on every country page with a deep link to the official Smartraveller page. We don't 'override' Smartraveller, we surface their advisory alongside the UK FCDO, US State Department, Canada's travel.gc.ca, and others, so you can see when governments agree or disagree about the same destination.
Why use Safe Trip if Smartraveller is free?
Smartraveller is free, but it's one government's perspective and updates on its own cadence. If you're booking a trip 6 weeks out and want to track all six major government advisories, plus disease outbreaks, conflict events, and natural disasters in one place, that's the Safe Trip job. For Australian-government policy compliance, keep using Smartraveller as your authoritative source.
Does Safe Trip have analyst commentary like Smartraveller?
Smartraveller's editorial commentary is excellent and we don't try to compete with it directly, we link out to their full advisory text on every country page. Safe Trip's editorial layer is methodology-focused: signed, time-bound score adjustments when raw events would mislead (e.g., a wildfire in a remote province doesn't affect the capital).
Read more: FCDO travel advisory levels, explained, how the major government advisories compare. Or open our methodology.