Editorial team + methodology

Who writes Kakapo's safety guides, what sources we cite, how often we update — and why "Kakapo Editorial Team" appears on every byline.

Who writes the guides

Kakapo guides are written by a small in-house team of travel writers + a network of regional contributors who've lived in or repeatedly visited the cities they cover. Drafts pass through a fact-checking pass against the official source set below; final review applies our editorial guidelines (no fluff, no recycled "top 10" lists, name the specific neighbourhoods + scams + emergency numbers, honest framing over alarmism).

The "Kakapo Editorial Team" byline reflects collective authorship + review. Many guides are drafted by one writer, edited by another, fact-checked against the official advisories by a third, and updated regularly as conditions change. Attributing a single name to a guide that's been through that workflow would misrepresent how the content gets to publication.

The source set we cite on every guide

Every city + country guide ends with a Sources block. Across our 640+ guides, the recurring sources are:

• UK FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth + Development Office) — country-by-country travel advice. We treat it as the baseline for British-citizen-facing risk framing.
• US State Department — Travel Advisory levels 1-4 + per-country information pages. Used for the four-level country-risk framing.
• National police / interior ministries — for emergency numbers + specific crime-pattern advisories.
• National meteorology agencies — AEMET (Spain), Met Office (UK), Météo France, NOAA (US), JMA (Japan), and others — for weather-risk framing.
• National tourism boards — for transport + visa + ticket-pricing + official-operator references.
• National rail / transit operators — Renfe, SNCF, Trenitalia, JR, Amtrak, etc. — for pricing + route + safety-on-transit references.
• Local English-language press — Time Out, Local Today (Spain/Italy), Evening Standard (London), Bangkok Post, Japan Times — for current-pattern reporting.

Reader-submitted corrections are reviewed + applied within 14 days where verifiable. Contact us with the guide URL + a source link if you spot a factual error or out-of-date claim.

How often we update guides

• Major destinations (London, Paris, Rome, NYC, Bangkok, Tokyo, etc.): reviewed quarterly + on any FCDO / State Department advisory change.
• Mid-tier destinations: reviewed every 6 months + on advisory changes.
• Smaller destinations: reviewed annually + on advisory changes.
• Country safety hubs (e.g. Is Spain Safe, Is Italy Safe): reviewed quarterly.

The "Updated" date in each guide's byline is the most-recent editorial pass. The "Published" date is the original first-publication. If the gap between the two is more than 12 months on a major destination, that's a bug + we'd appreciate the heads-up.

Editorial principles

• Honest framing over alarmism. "Barcelona is dangerous" is wrong; "Barcelona has Europe's highest documented pickpocket density on La Rambla, the Sagrada Família entry queue, and metro Line 3 — with violent crime against tourists still rare" is right. We aim for the second framing on every guide.
• Name the specific. Specific neighbourhoods, specific scams, specific emergency numbers, specific operators, specific pricing. Generic safety advice is useless when you're actually planning a trip.
• Cite the official sources. When we make a claim about advisory level, we cite UK FCDO or US State Department. When we cite a crime pattern, we link the relevant national-police or English-language-press source.
• Don't fabricate. No invented statistics. No invented operators. No invented quotes. If we're not sure, we say so.
• Update when conditions change. Travel advisories shift; political situations evolve; specific scams come + go. A guide written in 2024 isn't reliable in 2026 without review.

Safety scoring

Each guide carries a 0-100 safety score + four sub-scores (Personal safety, Transport, Healthcare, Air Quality / Night). The methodology + the data sources behind those scores are explained at our scoring methodology page.

Contact + corrections

Email [email protected] or use the contact form. We read every message + apply verifiable corrections within 14 days. For commercial / partnership / press enquiries, same form is fine.