Kevin Costner's new app will guide your next American road trip

Oscar-winning actor, Kevin Costner, has co-founded an audio entertainment app for road-trippers across the US. HearHere is an iPhone app that tells travelers the stories of the people, places and histories of the land they're traveling through, presented in a travel podcast format.

A campervan heading to Yosemite National Park — The app tells travelers the stories of the land they're traveling through © Getty Images/Image Source

With international travel curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, road trips are becoming an increasingly popular option. HearHere describes itself as a network of stories, told by master storytellers like Costner and Hall of Fame basketball coach Phil Jackson, with the power to bring a location's landscape, people and history alive as you pass through it. At present, it is offering more than 1500 stories covering the west coast of California, Oregon and Washington on the iPhone app, and by next summer, it plans to offer more than 10,000 stories covering the entire US on both Android and iOS.

Co-founded by Woody Sears, Bill Werlin and Kevin Costner, the audio vignettes combine to paint a picture you’re unlikely to get from a history book or visitor's guide. The app's subjects include history, sports, culture, music and geology, and listeners can stream five stories for free. Following the free trial, the app's annual $49.99 (€42.15) subscription is being offered at the promotional price of $24.99 (€21.08) until 31 August 2020. The subscription includes offline listening for future or home listening.

“I love stories,” Costner writes. “I am the guy that stops at the historical markers along the highway—usually bringing moans from everyone in the car. But it was this continuing curiosity that I began to think HearHere could satisfy without anyone having to leave the car. Why couldn’t we replicate every marker along the highway—even expanding from the usual paragraph in bronze that always left me wanting more.”

Further information on the HearHere app is available here.

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