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Just Ahead Launches Yellowstone National Park Audio Tour

July 27, 2015 Bob Howells

Just Ahead has added Yellowstone National Park to its collection of smartphone audio tours, just in time for the peak travel season to America’s original national park.

Yellowstone is the ideal setting for a Just Ahead tour, with more than 300 miles of incredibly scenic roads fashioning a giant figure-eight loop through a landscape of mountains, meadows, and thermal marvels.

Old Faithful…Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone…Artist Paint Pots…Norris Geyser Basin…Yellowstone Lake… are all among the 600-plus narrated stories in the most extensive guide we’ve ever produced.

As you drive through the park, you hear stories about these and hundreds of other remarkable sights, plus tales of the park’s charismatic mammals and birds. And the best places to see them—bison, elk, grizzly bears, moose, wolves, pronghorn, beavers, trumpeter swans, and giant lake trout.

Grizzly bears represent the abundance of wildlife in Yellowstone. NPS photo by Jim Peaco

Driving to Las Vegas? Check Out Just Ahead’s New Interstate 15 Audio Guide

July 24, 2015 Bob Howells

Our newest smartphone audio guide is also our most unique tour—it’s a guide to Interstate 15 from Los Angeles to St. George, Utah, by way of Las Vegas and Hoover Dam.

In other words, Just Ahead is now developing audio tours of great American roadways to go with our highly popular national park tours. Of course, in the case of Interstate 15, the route happens to link up with a couple of Just Ahead’s terrific national park tours—Death Valley and Zion—which in turn lead neatly into Just Ahead’s many other California and Utah national park guides.

For many travelers, I-15 is known simply as “the way to Vegas,” and if that’s your destination, fine. You’ll learn a great deal on the way. As you cruise along the interstate, we spin yarns about the old Spanish history of the route…its bizarre geographical highlights, including cinder cones and the San Andreas Fault…and the plant life and wildlife that flourish just outside your windows, from Joshua trees to creosote to rattlesnakes.

Naturally, this being the way to Vegas, we cover the quirky history of that one-of-a-kind city.

Update from Just Ahead’s Founder and CEO

July 14, 2015 Gregory Morse

July 14, 2015

From the desk of Gregory Morse, Founder of Just Ahead www.justahead.com, the app that turns your smartphone into a road trip audio guide.Gratifying feedback and unsolicited accolades have been pouring in from Just Ahead users!

“LOVE this idea!! It’s like you went into my brain and pulled out something I never even knew that I wanted but now can’t think to live without. You’re awesome!” —Michelle Jeffries
“We LOVE your guides! We retired last year and are traveling the country. We used your Sequoia & Kings Canyon guide and can’t thank you enough for pointing out Redwood Canyon. It was amazing! We also used your Yosemite guide both in our car and on our Harley Davidson Road Glide. The guide information worked beautifully through the stereo and made it so easy to explore these parks.” —Bob Murray
“Holy cow! Just got back from my Death Valley trip and I can’t believe how great the app was along the journey. Not only did it guide us to hikes and places we might have (easily) overlooked, but gave us perspective of the park that allowed us to appreciate it on a whole new level (history, points of interest, flora/fauna, etc.).” —Just Ahead fan Jesse Forest
Called “Best App” by the editors of Sunset Magazine, and won the “Best Travel App” award from the North American Travel Journalists Association (NATJA).

Who are we? We’re the entrepreneurs and adventurers at Just Ahead who remove boredom, anxiety and worry from road trips by creating entertaining, informative smartphone audio guides that keep eyes and ears—young and old—glued to stories and landmarks while driving through our national parks and scenic highways. Just Ahead utilizes GPS technology to know exactly where drivers are on the road, and delivers stories and maps relevant to their exact location.

The glowing reviews for Just Ahead are largely due to the creative team responsible for the fascinating stories told along the open road. They include:

Bob Howells, editor and lead writer: Former correspondent for Outside magazine, editor-at-large of National Geographic Adventure and contributor to, among others, Smithsonian and Travel + Leisure. Co-author of National Geographic Guide to National Parks of the United States, National Geographic Secrets of the National Parks and National Geographic’s The 10 Best of Everything: National Parks. Three-time Lowell Thomas Award winner, including the 2009 Silver Award for Travel Journalist of the Year from the Society of American Travel Writers. Bob’s Just Ahead Guides are Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Zion & Cedar Breaks, and Bryce Canyon.
Alan Rider: Longtime writer for AAA publications and guidebooks, and contributor to National Geographic books, including National Geographic Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways. Alan’s Just Ahead Guides are Grand Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches & Canyonlands, Black Hills & Mount Rushmore, and Badlands National Park.
Mike Steere: Correspondent for Outside, contributor to Men’s Journal, Inc, and Wired, and co-author of several books, including Brothers of Iron, a memoir of the muscle-and-fitness pioneers Joe and Ben Weider. Mike’s Just Ahead Guides are Interstate 15 and Hoover Dam, Mesa Verde, Canyon De Chelly, Petrified Forest, and Monument Valley.
Aaron Teasdale: Former deputy editor at Adventure Cycling, writer and photographer for, among others, Sierra, Sunset, Mountain, and National Geographic Adventure. He is a three-time Lowell Thomas Award winner, including a bronze award for Travel Journalist of the Year in 2013, from the Society of American Travel Writers. Aaron’s Just Ahead Guides are Yellowstone and Grand Teton.
Mel White: Author of National Geographic Complete National Parks of the United States, and co-author of other National Geographic books, including Secrets of the National Parks and The 10 Best of Everything: National Parks. Mel’s Just Ahead Guides are Great Smoky Mountains and Rocky Mountain.

Already available are audio guides for 11 national parks—and in time for summer vacation we will launch several more including Just Ahead’s first highway guide: Interstate 15 (Los Angeles to St. George, Utah, via Las Vegas and Hoover Dam). We also recently released a much-anticipated Android version of Just Ahead.

The Just Ahead app is a free download available either through the Apple App Store or Google Play. Each destination guide is available as an in-app purchase and includes a free trial and free guide updates. Prices range from $7.99 to $9.99.

Please let us know if you are headed to a destination covered by one of our guides, and we can send you a complimentary code for a test drive. We’d love for you to help sing the praises for what we think will change and enhance the way folks enjoy an American road trip.

The best of the summer to you!

Greg

Gregory Morse
Founder, Just Ahead
gmorse@justahead.com
https://www.justahead.com

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Just Ahead Now Covers All of Utah’s Mighty Five National Parks

May 20, 2015 Bob Howells

Among the most spectacular driving experiences in America are the roads that lead to and through the red-rock scenery and dramatic geology of Capitol Reef National Park, Arches National Park, and Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Now Just Ahead has GPS-triggered smartphone audio guides for all three of these parks to complement our popular guides for Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park.

Those parks together make up Utah’s Mighty Five—five dramatic national parks, each of them linked by a short drive from the next-nearest park.

Park visitors now can enjoy the delightful experience of a narrated guided tour of all five parks and the roads that link them. Your smartphone becomes a miniature park ranger—knowledgeable, engaging, and entertaining.

Arches National Park. NPS photo by Kait Thomas.

Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks: The Latest From Just Ahead

April 10, 2015 Bob Howells

Few national park settings are as made to order for a Just Ahead mobile audio guide as Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon Park. Which is why we’re particularly proud to announce the release of our brand-new guide to these great Sierra Nevada siblings.

Just Ahead’s audio tour of Sequoia and Kings Canyon travels from the foothills of central California into the High Sierra Nevada to the home of the world’s largest trees. It’s a thrilling journey, traversed by three of the country’s most scenic drives: Mineral King Road in Sequoia, Kings Canyon Scenic Byway in Kings Canyon, and Generals Highway, the twisting mountain road that connects the two parks.

Grand Canyon National Park Is Just Ahead’s Newest Guide

March 18, 2015 Bob Howells

We’re thrilled to announce the release of our newest guide: Grand Canyon National Park.

Grand Canyon National Park visitors can now enjoy a hands-free, narrated audio tour of America’s most iconic geological marvel. Whether you’re driving along the rim, approaching it from any direction, or exploring any of the side trips we recommend, Just Ahead relates stories about the magnificent scenery you see as it rolls by outside your car window.

NPS photo by Michael Quinn

New Audio Guide Enhances
National Park Vacations

February 26, 2015 Gregory Morse

For Immediate Release

New Audio Guide Enhances National Park Vacations –
Just Ahead’s Innovative GPS-Driven Smartphone App
Turns Road Trip Into Richly Narrated Journey

Recently Named ‘Best Travel App’ by the
North American Travel Journalists Association

LONG BEACH, CA, Feb. 26, 2015 – Thanks to a new travel app from Just Ahead (https://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 Announces
Bryce Canyon Guide

December 15, 2014 Bob Howells

Just Ahead, the app that turns your smartphone into an audio tour guide, is ready to guide you to and through Bryce Canyon National Park—land of a million hoodoos.

Not that we’ve actually counted the hoodoos. But we do know that Bryce is perfectly suited for a Just Ahead tour. It’s a gorgeous park in the heart of Utah’s Grand Staircase country, with great roads and loads of scenic overlooks—where you see, of course, millions of hoodoos—those amazing fantasy spires of crimson limestone, clustered in mazes and rising from the floor of natural amphitheaters along the edge of the Paunsagunt Plateau.

Zion National Park:
Newest Just Ahead Guide

December 12, 2014 Bob Howells

Just Ahead’s newest smartphone audio tour is a guide to Zion National Park, Utah. You not only get a narrated tour of this spectacular park in Utah’s red-rock plateau country, but you also get a bonus guide: Cedar Breaks National Monument.

In classic Just Ahead fashion, we also guide you along the scenic byways that lead to both destinations.

Two world-famous scenic drives in the heart of Zion lace together the fantastic landforms that make the park such an irresistible draw to visitors: Zion Canyon Scenic Drive and Zion–Mount Carmel Highway. We guide you, entertain you, and tell the stories behind the scenery as the sights roll by:

Court of the Patriarchs • The Grotto • Weeping Rock • Angels Landing • Great White Throne • Big Bend • Temple of Sinawava • Zion Narrows • Zion–Mt. Carmel Tunnel • Checkerboard Mesa • Great Arch • Streaked Wall • Kolob Arch

Just Ahead Announces the Release of Our Yosemite National Park Tour

October 14, 2014 Bob Howells

Just Ahead, the app that turns your smartphone into an audio tour guide to the world, has launched its third tour: Yosemite National Park.

Yosemite is an absolutely perfect park for the Just Ahead platform. It has great roads that lead to fabled places as well as out-of-the way gems. We guide you to all of its world-famous landmarks like El Capitan and Yosemite Falls…the Ahwahnee Hotel and Bridalveil Fall.

But those are clustered in Yosemite Valley—a magnificent place, but less than 1% of the park.

Mirror Lake is the gateway to Tenaya Canyon in Yosemite National Park.

News and Updates