In all honesty, except for the deepest hole, I have pretty decent cell reception under most circumstances. Verizon, BTW. But my work phone is AT&T and it has good reception as well, usually.
X2 on Gaia GPS and a tablet. Works well and uses equipment you probably already own. That said, I've had better luck with stand alone GPS units. Better reception. Easier to use. But then again, that is just me.
Ham radio is a good place to start. As mentioned before, 2m covers a wide range here in the southeast. Yes you do have to study for the test, however if you are able to memorize facts and figures well, then the test is easy. The online "flashcard" pages is what really helped me get ready.
For Ham radio equipment...this is a HUGE debate. But long story short, the Baofeng UV-5R is a staple (ignore all other Baofeng units, I've tried a few others, they aren't as good as the 5R). Its a decent-ish enough radio, but most importantly, it is cheap as crap. So its purchase doesn't hurt too badly. More importantly, you need an external antenna for it to REALLY work. So a $30 magnet mount radio antenna with an adapter works great. But yes, getting the antenna outside of the vehicle makes all of the difference. So yeah, you can have a legit setup for under $100 that is easily moved.
The better units, like what mounts in the truck, or a good handheld are both EXTREMELY good. I went with the good handheld route and enjoy it well. Typically, outside of a vehicle in the woods, I can hit repeaters 15~20 miles away with the stock antenna, easy. BTW, this is just at 5 watts. Many hard-mount 2m radios are good up to 50w of power. So you can really reach out there and touch em with a proper setup on 2m.
For the southeast, 2m is the way to go. You can pretty much hit a repeater anywhere. Go over to the Southeast section and search for threads I've started. I have tried to start a list of popular repeaters within the Southeast. If you go onto
http://k5ehx.net/ you'll see there are TONS of repeaters everywhere, but only a fraction of them are active. So its important to realize which ones actually have traffic for you to communicate on. Easier to reach help on a repeater that people are monitoring.
One thing to keep in mind about Ham equipment. New, you get sticker shock. However go online and look for used. Prices become a lot more reasonable. That is what I did for my fancy handheld. Saved A BUNCH of money and it works just fine.
As mentioned before, all of these radios need a computer to program them. But once its programmed, its good to go.
Check out Ham Radio 360 podcast to help get you going and to explore more areas of ham radio.
My friend has one of those Garmin Inreach thingies. I guess if people back home are that worried about you, go for it. Otherwise it seems like its something else. I'm just not into paying a monthly fee for something that tracks me. I guess if I was out west and going out every weekend, it would be worth it. But I get out...MAYBE once a month...for a day trip...usually with other vehicles or on popular tracks. So its like, why do I need to pay a monthly subscription to something else.
Lastly, its the southeast. If you get into trouble on a public track, wait. Usually within an hour, someone will be by.
any advice is greatly appreciated on what to purchase!!
