Explore like a local with this helpful travel app
A personal tour guide is great, but it’s not always realistic, especially when you’re on a budget or you don’t want to keep to a specific timeline.
Recently, I met up with the founder of Shaka Guide, an app that turns your phone into a GPS-powered audio tour guide.
It’s been providing visitors to Hawaii with amazing, self-guided tours for about eight years, and now it’s added national parks and scenic drives in the U.S. mainland.
“Our tour takes people out here and gives them an explanation of this valley the history and the culture of the meaning of this place,” said Andrew Fowers, co-founder of Shaka Guide.
He moved to Hawaii for college and never looked back. He started Shaka Guide in his dorm room and says the name means “hang loose, come with us, have a great time.”
Some of the new tours include National Parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone and scenic drives like the iconic Blue Ridge Parkway and the Great Smoky Mountains.
In California, there are tours for Joshua Tree, Lake Tahoe and Death Valley.
The Sedona, Arizona tour lasts 8-12 hours and has 101 audio points! Of course, you can do as many or as little as you want.
“We’re spending three months researching the location we send actually real people to these places spend a week there visiting touring the place talking to locals and guides,” said Fowers.
Just follow the GPS guide and stories play along your route. Most are driving, some are walking.
“What we’re doing is very very specific minutiae of look to your left look to your right and so it feels like more a tour guide experience with the detail and the storytelling,” said Fowers.
On the Honolulu tour I sampled, there were 68 audio points, all read by a friendly voice.
“What I like about being on your own is you really have the freedom to explore at your own pace you’re on your own schedule with your own family and you can just really take your time,” said Fowers.
Tours start at around $10. Bundles are also available, which are a better value. Once you purchase the tours, there is no expiration date.
“There will always be a need for a human led tour guide; we’re trying to target a type of customer that previously never had any sort of option for a tour,” said Fowers.
Safety is also a big part of the equation. Fowers explained how many tourists are seeing “secret” spots on TikTok and Instagram and may not be aware of the dangers of visiting them.
“People do get hurt every year here in Hawaii, and we’re really trying to educate people on how to stay safe and have a great time,” said Fowers.
I’m a huge fan of these types of apps. I’ve also tried VoiceMap, which provides audio-guided walking tours of various cities. GuideAlong is the biggest competitor to Shaka Guide. Autio is backed by the actor Kevin Costner and provides individual audio stories along the route you’re already driving.
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