If you want the ability to communicate with emergency services ASAP and/or communicate with family or friends that have the ability to text then something like the garmin inreach may be a good choice for you. We have the inreach explorer. The advantage over spot is (a) the ability to have two way communication with whomever you are contacting, including the emergency services. and (b) better chance of quickly getting a signal out. Garmin uses iridium sats, which are not geosyncronous so you don't need a view of the southern sky.
Before the inreach I had spot, I never completely trusted it. Often in wooded areas it would take an hour or more to get a text out since it needs a view of the southern sky to get to a sat. and since is one way only I never knew for sure the text got out. And then I had two of them completely fail on me, replaced under warranty, but didn't give me much peace of mind.
We've used the inreach in europe, north/south america in the ocean and always been able to communicate via text to whomever we could text to. And it never has taken more than a minute or two to get the message out to a sat.
The inreach is less expensive than a sat phone, with similar capability.
The inreach (and spot) also allow real time tracking that you can allow others to see. We do this so our kids and contacts can see where we are and the tracking includes GPS co ordinants. Viewers can also use google earth with the tracking to see terrain maps, roadmaps or geographic maps to see your location.