New Zealand's back country is close to its towns, and out of range within minutes. These apps help you plan, watch the weather and find signal. We built LastBar and say so.
First, the number
The emergency number is 111. Every mobile phone also treats 112 as an emergency number, on any network it can reach. Texting 111 is a service for people who are deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired, and only from a phone registered with the Police beforehand.
Plan My Walk
Good for: planning a tramp and leaving a trip plan with someone
From the NZ Mountain Safety Council: more than 1000 Department of Conservation tracks, MetService forecasts and severe weather warnings, track alerts and gear lists, and a trip plan you share with an emergency contact.
Free
MetService
Good for: severe weather warnings
New Zealand's official provider of severe weather warnings, with alerts for where you are. Its website has mountain and national park forecasts with weather hazards for trip planning.
Free; a subscription removes ads
LastBar We built this
Good for: finding the nearest signal to call 111
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
Organic Maps
Good for: free offline maps with walking tracks
Offline maps on OpenStreetMap data with hiking trails, contour lines and elevation profiles.
Free, no ads
what3words
Good for: an exact location in three words
Finds the three words of your 3-metre square offline, to read out once you have signal.
Free
Out of range
- Leave a trip plan with someone you trust.
- Carry a personal locator beacon in the back country.
- Save the area in LastBar so you know where the last signal was.
What each app does is as its own pages, its store listing or New Zealand Police said on 26 October 2026. Apps change; check before you rely on one.
