Between adventure and local culture, road trips require patience through monotonous hours in a confined space. No need to suffer, though, because there’s always an app for that.
Make the plains, hills, mountains, and rivers come alive with HearHere, an immersive storytelling app. Paint the landscape with colorful characters, scenes, and natural wonders. Listen to music, local insights, and sports. Spark journeys with short stories narrated by Kevin Costner, John Lithgow, and more. HearHere casts tales to your taste with content tailored to user thematic interests.
From A Pacific Coast Highway Road Trip to America’s Easternmost Point in Lubec, Maine, HearHere is home to more than 10,000 stories describing the mythos painting this great, colorful swathe we call the United States.
Along the way you’ll recognize famous voices like Costner talking about the Pacific Coast, Lithgow unveiling personal recollections of towns that he’s lived or visited, and professional storytellers like James Fester regaling road trippers with Minnesota’s Mysterious Magnetic Rock, a 42-foot spire alien to its surroundings.
In the Southwest, roll along with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Arizona. Awe at the Havasupai tribe’s clinging to life atop the sere Grand Canyon’s sheer walls. Or hear about the eerie, bare Arizona strip where, in the barren northeastern corner of the state, where there are fewer than 10,000 people spread across 7,878.11 square miles, an area larger than several U.S. states.
Despite its sheer size, the app is relatively easy to navigate and find your way through. There’s a locator that tracks down episodes near your location. To surf around, zoom in and out on a U.S. map. Zoom all the way out and there’s even a few scattered additions in Alaska and one in Hawaii.
HearHere’s blog is also helpful and engaging, offering behind-the-scenes action, features with contributing authors, and road trip guides. Driving from east to west in the southern U.S., learn about Tampa’s Miracle at Cockroach Bay, pass by the spot where Louisiana’s first rebel officer was killed in New Orleans, and then get the inside scoop on the live music capital of the U.S. as you pull into Austin.
Crossing the continent to the north, there’s not always a ton to see surfing up and down South Dakota’s green, hilled waves across much of the state, but with HearHere, learn about its famous people memorialized at the South Dakota Hall of Fame or engage with its Native residents, the Lakota, as they made a last stand in 1852 across the eastern side of the state to its sacred Black Hills, stolen from them for mineral rights.
Annual unlimited subscriptions run for $35.99. Just download the Android or iOS app.
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