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SALT LAKE CITY — A new app is giving tourists the opportunity to take a narrated, self-guided tour through several LDS Church history sites.
With more people ditching guidebooks and using smartphones for travel, GuideMe Travel created an app that allows users to have the same experience of taking a guided tour, but with the flexibility of doing it by themselves. The app uses GPS tracking to follow where a user is visiting and will automatically narrate church history of certain points along the route.
The app gives narration and guided tours for sites in Independence, Missouri, and in Nauvoo, Illinois. It will list all the church history attractions and several other sites that may be of interest along the route. The app will provide a description, rating, picture and address of each location.
“When I began creating this particular app, I thought about the spiritual experience I would like my own family to have and shared stories that could strengthen their testimonies and help them understand why the Mormon pioneers ended up crossing the plains to Utah,” said app creator, Annette Smith, in a news release. “I also knew that my own kids could become easily bored so I tried to throw in a little humor and ways they could apply the stories into their own lives.”
The Independence to Nauvoo GPS Guide app will be released on Aug. 1 and available through iTunes. The app is most compatible with an iPhone or iPad with GPS, but can be used with an iPod as well by playing the audio manually.
