The best safety gear for a hike is a plan someone else knows about. After that, a few apps make a real difference: a map that works offline, a way to give your exact location, and a way to find signal when you need to call. We built LastBar and say so; the rest are here because they are good at what they do.
AllTrails
Good for: finding trails, and sharing your plan with Lifeline
A large library of trails with reviews and photos. With the paid Plus you can download maps for offline use, and Lifeline shares your route and expected finish time with your contacts, and alerts them if you do not finish when you said you would.
Free; offline maps and Lifeline with AllTrails Plus
Organic Maps
Good for: free offline maps with hiking trails
Built on OpenStreetMap, it works fully offline once you have downloaded a region, with hiking trails, contour lines and elevation profiles, and records and imports routes as GPX.
Free, no ads
LastBar We built this
Good for: finding the nearest signal to call for help, offline
A map of where phones measured signal, and where they measured none, made by the people who use it, carrier by carrier. It keeps the map of the places around you and of the areas you save on your phone, so Find Signal can give you the distance and direction to the nearest signal with no connection: for an emergency call on any carrier, a call or SMS on your own, or data. It shows the emergency numbers of the country you are in, and water, shelter, clinics, police and fuel from OpenStreetMap. Android phones map signal in the background as you go; an iPhone maps while the app is open. Where nobody has been with it yet, the map is empty.
Android 8.0 and up, iPhone with iOS 16 and up ยท Free, with Pro bought once
Gaia GPS
Good for: offline topographic maps and planning multi-day routes
Detailed maps you download before you go, then navigate by GPS with no signal. Premium adds many more maps and layers.
Free to start; offline maps with Premium
what3words
Good for: telling a rescuer exactly where you are
Finds the three words of your 3-metre square offline. Emergency services in many countries accept them, but you need signal to read them out or send them.
Free
FarOut
Good for: long-distance trails such as the Appalachian Trail and the PCT
Trail guides with water sources, campsites, junctions and town notes, kept up to date by hikers' comments, that work offline.
Guides bought one by one, or a subscription to all
And where you hike
- Australia: Emergency+ dials Triple Zero and shows your location and three words to read out. Safety apps for Australia.
- New Zealand: Plan My Walk, from the Mountain Safety Council, makes a trip plan with an emergency contact. Safety apps for New Zealand.
- The UK: OS Maps for Ordnance Survey maps offline. Safety apps for the UK.
- South Africa: Safety apps for South Africa.
What each app does and costs is as its own website, its store listing or reviews of it said on 26 October 2026. Apps change; check before you rely on one.
