Best Travel Apps for South Africa: 6 Worth Downloading Before You Go

You won’t give the apps on your phone much thought in South Africa until the moment you really need one.

A map when you have taken a wrong turn in Cape Town. A flight tracker when your connecting flight appears to have developed a mind of its own. An eSIM that lets you access WhatsApp as soon as you land. And, if you’re heading into the bush, an app that can tell you whether that bright point above the lodge is Jupiter or simply a very determined aeroplane.

South Africa is easy to travel around, but it’s also a big country. You might spend the morning walking around Cape Town, have lunch in the Winelands, and be sitting beside a campfire in a private reserve a day later. An app that works beautifully in the city may be considerably less helpful when you’re miles from the nearest mobile mast.

Here are six of the best travel apps for a South Africa trip, from Cape Town to Kruger.

1. Google Maps: For City Exploring

Google Maps is hardly an adventurous recommendation, but there’s a reason it comes first.

You can download maps of the areas you’re visiting before you leave home. Even without a signal, your phone’s GPS will still show where you are on the map, which is reassuring when you’re wandering through the Bo-Kaap or the V&A Waterfront and the mobile data decides to take a break.

It’s also the easiest way to keep your trip organised. Save your hotel in Cape Town, pin the restaurant you’ve been looking forward to, and mark the galleries, markets, and viewpoints you want to find on a free afternoon.

There’s nothing especially glamorous about this tip. There’s also nothing glamorous about standing on a street corner with 3% battery, trying to remember whether your hotel is to the left or right of the coffee shop.

With Discover Africa, your transfers to the Winelands and game reserves will be taken care of, so you won’t need Maps to get you there. But it’s rather nice to follow the little blue dot on the way and see just how far from the city you’re travelling.

2. Uber: Handy for City Days

In Cape Town, Johannesburg, and other major cities where Uber operates, the app can make getting around between your hotel, restaurants, and sightseeing stops straightforward.

You won’t need Uber for the bigger journeys. We arrange all your transfers, from airport arrivals to the movements between safari lodges. Someone will be waiting for you, and you won’t have to check a single app to find them.

Uber is more of a city companion.

It’s the app you’ll be glad to have when you’re staying at the Waterfront and having dinner on Bree Street, or when you spontaneously want to visit an art gallery one afternoon.

3. Flightradar24: For Keeping an Eye on Your Flights

There are people who check their flight once and get on with their day. Then some people know the aircraft type, altitude, and estimated arrival time before anyone has asked.

Flightradar24 is for the second group.

The app lets you track flights in real time, see detailed flight information, and check what’s flying overhead. It’s available on iOS and Android, and its current app includes features such as flight history and an augmented reality view.

We find it handy when an itinerary includes several flights. South Africa is a large country, and many safari trips involve a combination of international and domestic flights before you reach your final lodge.

You can check an incoming flight before heading to the airport, keep an eye on a delay, or see whether a friend or family member joining you has actually taken off yet.

4. Airalo: Keep Your Phone Connected

Arriving in a new country and immediately trying to work out your mobile data isn’t how most of us would choose to spend the first hour of a holiday.

An eSIM can make things much easier. Airalo currently offers eSIMs for South Africa with a number of different data package options.

If your phone supports eSIM technology, you can arrange your connection before you leave home and simply switch it on when you arrive.

That means you can message your driver and check your transfer details without hunting around for a SIM card at the airport.

5. Merlin Bird ID: For the Birds You Didn’t Know You’d Notice

Most people arrive on safari thinking about lions. Many leave talking about birds.

South Africa has an extraordinary variety of birdlife, and your guide will point out plenty of it. But there will be moments between game drives, on the lodge deck or over breakfast, when something colourful lands nearby and nobody is on hand to name it.

That’s where Merlin Bird ID comes in. Created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, it’s free and gives you several ways to identify a bird: answer a few simple questions, take a photo or let the app listen to a call and suggest what’s singing.

Download the Africa bird pack before you leave home, while you still have reliable Wi-Fi. It includes photos, songs and identification tips, so you’re not relying on a signal in the middle of a reserve.

Fair warning: this is how birders are made. You may come home with a list of sightings and a sudden opinion about weavers.

6. Night Sky: Look Up Once in a While

Night Sky turns your phone into a digital planetarium. Point it towards the sky, and it can help identify stars, planets, constellations, and satellites. It also includes information about astronomical events and other stargazing features.

We especially like it for safaris.

Once you’re away from the lights of a city, the night sky becomes part of the evening. Maybe you’ll recognise a few constellations already. You may also point your phone upwards and discover that you know considerably less about astronomy than you thought.

And there is something rather lovely about an app whose best trick is encouraging you to put your phone away afterwards.

Out of all the best apps for travelling to South Africa, this might be the one you remember most.

Night Sky is only available on Apple devices. Stellarium – Star Map is an alternative for Android. 

Six Essential Apps to Download for South Africa Travel

The best recommended travel apps for South Africa should reflect the trip you’re actually taking. If we were preparing a phone for one today, this would be our shortlist:

Before You Travel to South Africa

Download the maps you need while you still have reliable Wi-Fi. Set up your eSIM before departure. Add your flights to Flightradar24 and check that your device-tracking settings are working.

Then put the phone away.

That’s really what the best travel apps for South Africa should do. They should make things easier in the background, leaving you free to pay attention to what’s happening in front of you.

Use the map when you need it. Check the flight when it matters. Message the driver. Find the restaurant.

Then, when you’re sitting outside your lodge after dinner, look up.

We’ll Handle the Logistics

At Discover Africa, we’ve been planning safaris in Africa since 2002, and our team is based in Cape Town. We know the difference between a lodge that looks good on a screen and one that makes sense for the way you actually want your safari to feel. We also know how the flights, transfers, camps, and city stays need to fit together.

Tell us what you’re hoping to see and how you like to travel. We’ll help you choose the right places to stay, arrange the practical details, and keep everything moving smoothly.

Ready to start planning your South African safari? Whether you dream of tracking leopards in the Greater Kruger or are looking for the perfect malaria-free destination for your family vacation, one of our safari experts will create the ideal itinerary for you.