Safety for college students walking at night

Why the walk home is the part to plan

Campus life runs late. The library closes after midnight, labs run over, a shift at the dining hall ends at eleven, and the party is across town from your dorm. Most of those trips are short and uneventful. The ones that go wrong tend to share a few features: you are tired or have been drinking, you are walking a route you only half know, your phone is low, and nobody is expecting you at a particular time.

First-year students carry an extra layer of risk simply because the map is new. You do not yet know which paths are lit, which shortcut runs behind the maintenance buildings, or where the closest open building is at 1 a.m. Upperclassmen who moved off campus face a different version: a longer walk through a neighborhood that empties out at night.

None of this means you should stay in. It means one habit, done every time, beats a lot of good intentions. The habit is letting someone see your walk while it happens.

Pick two Guardians: one close, one steady

A parent three states away is a great person to know you are safe, but they cannot walk over to check on you. A roommate can, but they may be asleep, at the same party or with their phone on silent. Having one of each covers the gaps.

In Holler, the people who receive your link and alerts are called Guardians. They open your live location link in any web browser, with no app and no account, which matters when your roommate uses Android and your mom uses an iPhone. They see where you are only while you are sharing an outing, not all week. If that distinction matters to you (it should), read how to share your location without being tracked all the time.

• Close Guardian: a roommate, floormate or friend who lives near you and is usually up late.
• Steady Guardian: a parent, sibling or older friend who reliably checks their phone and stays calm.
• Tell both what you are asking. "If you get an alert from me, call me first. If I don't answer, call campus police."

A setup for the late walk, step by step

This takes a few minutes the first time, then about ten seconds per walk. Holler runs in your phone browser today, so there is nothing to install.

Use what your campus already offers

Many colleges run a safety escort service, a late-night shuttle, or both. Find out whether yours does during the first week, before you need it, and save the number. Save the campus police or public safety number too, and check your orientation materials or the public safety website for which number the school wants you to use for incidents on campus.

Learn the lit routes between the places you go most. Walk them once in daylight, note which buildings stay open late, and notice where the emergency phones are if your campus has them. When you are tired, the familiar lit route is the right one, even when it is longer.

• Keep your phone charged before you go out. A small battery pack in your bag solves most dead-phone nights.
• Carry an ID card with an emergency contact. Our free emergency contact card prints one in a minute.
• If someone is following you, head toward open buildings and people, and see what to do if someone follows you while walking.

Nights out: walk back together, or share

The most common gap after a party is the friend who leaves alone. Make it a group rule: nobody walks home alone, and anyone who does shares their link with someone in the group until they are inside. It costs nothing, and the friend who is still at the party can see that you made it.

If you have been drinking, your judgment about routes and strangers is not at its best, and your phone battery probably is not either. That is exactly when a return time earns its place, because it does not rely on you remembering to do anything later. For the rest of the walk, our answer on staying safe walking alone at night covers route and phone habits.

One Friday night, walked through

Maya lives in a dorm on the north side of campus and is at a friend's apartment a mile off campus. At 12:40 a.m. her friends are staying, and she decides to walk home. Before she steps outside she starts an outing, sets a return time of 1:15 a.m., and texts the group chat that she is sharing.

Her roommate, one of her two Guardians, is still up and opens the link. She can see Maya's route as a line on the map and the time of the last update. Maya takes the long way along the lit main road instead of the shortcut behind the athletic fields. At 1:02 a.m. she is inside and ends the outing, which is her check-in. Her mom, the second Guardian, sees nothing until the morning, which is the point: no alert means nothing went wrong.

If Maya's phone had died on the way, the link would have shown her last known location and marked it as stale, and at 1:20 a.m. both Guardians would have received an overdue alert from Holler's server. Her roommate would have called, then walked toward that last spot with a friend or called campus police.

What your Guardians should know

Give your Guardians three things they would otherwise have to hunt for: your dorm or apartment address, the campus police number, and the name of your roommate or a friend who lives nearby. A parent who gets an overdue alert at 1 a.m. should not be searching your college's website for a phone number.

Agree on what an alert means. An overdue alert usually means you forgot to check in or your phone died, so the first move is to call or text you. If there is no answer after a few minutes, they call your roommate, then campus police with your last known location from the link. If an SOS arrives, they call you once and, if you do not pick up, call for help right away. For more on the Guardian side, see what makes a good safety contact, and send your parents our guide on how to respond to an SOS alert.