South Africa has some of the best road-trip and hiking country in the world, and long stretches of it with no signal. These apps help: some to call for help, some to know where you are, and one to find signal. We built LastBar, and it is here with that said.
First, the numbers
From a mobile phone, 112 reaches emergency services in South Africa, and it is one of the numbers every phone treats as an emergency call, on any network it can reach. The police are on 10111 and an ambulance or the fire service on 10177; from a mobile phone those are ordinary calls, which need your own network. More in does 112 work on any network?
Namola
Good for: getting the police, an ambulance or the fire service to you
Request help from SAPS, metro police, fire and rescue and ambulances anywhere in South Africa, share your location with your family, and use a panic button. On the free plan an operator calls you to confirm the emergency; Plus can send help even if you cannot answer, and adds private armed response or medical response.
Free; Namola Plus is paid
Tracks4Africa Guide
Good for: offline maps of remote roads, camps and fuel
Offline maps from Tracks4Africa's own data, with gravel roads, sand tracks and 4x4 routes, and camps, fuel and services, across South Africa and its neighbours.
iPhone and Android · Free base map; country guides bought in the app
LastBar We built this
Good for: knowing where the signal ends on back roads and trails, and getting back to it
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 · Free, with Pro bought once
what3words
Good for: giving your exact location in three words
Finds the three words of your 3-metre square offline. ER24 asks callers to read their three words out on its line, 084 124.
Free
An armed-response panic button through AURA
Good for: private security response in town and on the road
AURA dispatches the nearest registered armed-response vehicle to your GPS position when a panic button is pressed. It is offered through partners, such as insurers and apps that build it in, rather than as an app of its own, so check whether yours includes it.
Through a partner app or insurer
On a trip out of range
- Save the area in LastBar before you go: in the Cederberg, the Karoo or the Tankwa the signal ends quickly. See is there signal in the Tankwa Karoo?
- Tell someone your route and when you expect to arrive.
- Carry a satellite messenger for the places no network reaches. Note that satellite SOS on phones was not offered in South Africa when we checked.
What each app does and costs is as its own website, store listing or partner announcements said on 26 October 2026. The emergency numbers are those of our research of October 2026. Apps change; check before you rely on one.
