In the summer of 2007, my girlfriend (now wife) and I went on a Globus bus tour through Italy. You know the type: the bus drops you off at a museum, you wear an earpiece while the tour guide talks into their microphone and holds a little stick in the air so you can follow them around, then back on the bus to a restaurant; back on the bus to a hotel; back on the bus and back on the road.

Don’t get me wrong, it was wonderful. Italy is stunning, and I fell in love with Venice so much that I have a Venetian plague doctor mask hanging in my office. But I’m not interested in repeating that experience. It was too rigid and too generic to fully satisfy my desire for exploration, and I was doing it all with a bunch of strangers.

I can see the appeal and I don’t want to yuck somebody else’s yum, but it’s just not for me.

These days, when my family travels, we heavily research, build our own itinerary, and do the things we’re actually interested in. That makes me feel more accomplished and like I’ve fully experienced a place.

But there’s no denying that local expert knowledge is hard to replace and can add depth to an experience you can’t find any other way.

That is, until I found GuideAlong.

What GuideAlong Actually Does

GuideAlong is a phone app that uses your GPS to know your physical location in the real world and then plays contextually appropriate audio clips. That could be anything from local history about the spot you’re standing in, a heads-up that a great restaurant is coming up on the right, or which lane you need to be in at this traffic light to reach a specific landmark.

It’s not about giving you an explicit itinerary. It’s about tips, tricks, inside knowledge, and local context to enrich what you’re already doing.

The whole time, you’re hearing a relatable, friendly, actual human; the recording is crystal clear and perfectly pleasant to listen to. It’s all downloaded ahead of time, so it works particularly well when you’re going off the beaten path in a national park, but there are tons of tours for locations much closer to home too.

The Practical Stuff That Matters

The way it works is that you buy a specific tour for a location, like the island of Maui or Big Bend National Park. A tour is usually 10 to 20 bucks. They also sell bundles, so you can buy all the Hawaiian Islands and save a lot of money per tour.

I think it’s super cost-effective, even buying one tour at a time. Each tour is a one-time purchase that you have forever, and you get all the future updates if you ever revisit a place. There’s no limit to how much you use the app, so for the price of one or two airport coffees, you basically have a permanent local tour guide.

I’ve purchased ten tours as of writing this post and plan on purchasing many more. I have an item on my trip-planning project template to check for GuideAlong tours, and I get genuinely disappointed when I get an email about a new tour being released for a place I’ve already visited.

Why It Works for National Park Trips

I particularly like these tours for National Park trips. Parks already have infrastructure to educate you; reading the plaques is always worthwhile for any 99 PI listener. But GuideAlong adds an extra layer, often outside and around the parks, and even within the park when you’re driving from one location to another.

The little bits of information really enrich the trip and can make drives feel shorter, which is great when you have a kid in the back seat wondering when we’re going to get there.

Big Bend National Park is a perfect example. It’s large enough that driving from one side to the other takes quite a while through sprawling desert landscapes. Beautiful, certainly, but it can get repetitive. Hearing stories of Mexican raiders and cursed gold added a level of experience to the trip we wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.

The Honest Assessment

While I’m certainly a fan (I just stocked up on a couple of tours during their Black Friday sale), there are situations that could be improved.

First, tour quality varies by location. The Maui tour was incredible, adding rich context about ancient Hawaiian culture, the best beaches to go snorkeling, and where to get the freshest banana bread. The Big Bend tour was more one-note, but that’s mainly because of the place itself. In a remote desert of West Texas, you’re not going to get parking advice for beaches.

The bigger issue is repetition. During our Maui trip, the condo we stayed at had an audio point just a block down the road about outrigger canoe racing. Every time we left the condo, I heard that same story. By the tenth time, I avoided starting the tour until we were further from the house. I wish there was a setting to limit how many times a point plays. It’s helpful to hear something more than once, but maybe cap it at three or four times to avoid the outrigger canoe problem.

I also wish there was completion tracking. This might just be the completionist video gamer in me, but I’d love to see which audio points I’ve listened to and which I haven’t. I could definitely see myself trying to hit 100% completion on a tour; it would encourage me to explore areas specifically to finish all the points.

Regardless, I think there’s real value in seeing how GuideAlong can fit into your trip experience.

Getting Started

The app is free to download, so you can check what locations they have available before committing. You can browse through the app or search on their website.

I always purchase tours before the trip and download them at home. Depending on the tour or bundle, downloads can be a couple hundred megabytes; I don’t want to rely on airport Wi-Fi for that. The tours also include suggested itineraries that could help with trip planning, though I haven’t used that feature myself.

GuideAlong works best for trips where you’re driving around and exploring. If you’re not interested in learning about the places you visit, this won’t add anything. But if you’re curious about where you are and want to understand more about what you’re seeing, whether you’ve planned every stop or you’re just wandering, it’s a solid addition to your travel infrastructure.