Travel App Brings National Park Road Trips to Life

Thanks to a new travel app from Just Ahead (http://www.justahead.com/), smartphone technology can now play a vital role on a vacation into America's national parks. In fact, it may be just the thing to turn heads away from games, music, and texting and into nature while cruising park roads this summer.

New to the market for 2015, the GPS-powered mobile app turns smartphones into hands-free audio tour guides of the most beautiful places on earth.

Just Ahead's app and audio guides work even where cell phones, Internet, and Wi-Fi won't, to stream fun and interesting stories spliced with geography, history, and even driving directions while cruising through a national park.

One example is Just Ahead's Death Valley National Park audio guide, which recently garnered the Best Travel App award from the North American Travel Journalists Association. This award is due, in part, to the levels of professional travel writing and narration that present the myriad stories of each national park. Content writer and editor Bob Howells has twice won the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) Lowell Thomas Gold Award for adventure travel writing.

"Our aim is to give travelers and their families an entertaining and educational travel experience," underscored Just Ahead founder Gregory Morse. "We think the Just Ahead app and audio guides encourage exploring and getting off the beaten track. You're engaged at the same time you're learning."

Just Ahead utilizes GPS technology to know exactly where drivers are on the road, and delivers stories and maps relevant to their location. Just Ahead also helps drivers avoid getting lost by providing helpful suggested directions. Just Ahead tells drivers why they should turn or not, what they should do after a turn, and recommends the best direction to take if there are multiple route options.

As of mid-winter 2015, Just Ahead apps are available for the following parks: Yosemite, Zion and Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon, Joshua Tree, and Death Valley. An additional 12 national park guides are in production, including Grand Canyon, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Capitol Reef, Arches, Canyonlands, Petrified Forrest, Canyon De Chelly, Monument Valley, and Mesa Verde - with many more to come.

Just Ahead started with US national parks because they are treasured natural assets that are visited each year by 292 million people from around the world (2014 set a record for national park visitation). But the company intends to go beyond the parks. In the future, Just Ahead will offer guides for other major road trip destinations, including California Highway 1, Route 66, the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Hawaiian Islands, and many others.

The Just Ahead app is a free download, and each destination guide is available as an in-app purchase. Guides range from $7.99 - $9.99 and include a free trial and free guide updates.

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