Photo: U.S. National Archives · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Getaways · Getting there is the getaway
The miles had voices.
Getaways gives the drive its voice back — a narrator that reads up on your exact road, then speaks up as each story goes by your window.
- It keeps talking where the bars run out
- The good roads start closer than you'd think
- Your friends can weigh in without downloading a thing
Photo: Carlos A. Durán/ESO · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
More connected.
More absent.
We are more connected than any humans who ever lived.
Photo: GlacierNPS · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
We stopped looking out the window.
Somewhere between the screens.
Photo: King of Hearts · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every road remembers.
But the world never stopped talking.
Photo: Michelle Kim · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Someone in the car used to know.
A father. A grandmother. A friend who had been here before. The miles had voices.
Photo: Joseph Yates · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
We brought the voice back.
Not to take your attention. To hand it back.
Someone in the car knows things again.
Press start and someone is there: “This is Livermore Wine Country — 14 stories along the way.” Then quiet, until the road has something to say.
It speaks up where it matters
The narrator says hello when the drive starts, then stays quiet until there's something worth saying — the landmark on your left, the town you're about to be in the middle of.
The map knows what's next
Swipe from the story to the route: your car on the road, every story marked, the played ones dimmed. Tap one ahead to hear it early.
Downloaded before you pull out
“12 stories · 17 mi of road · downloaded to this iPhone.” It keeps narrating in the canyon, in the park, wherever the bars run out.
Behaves like good car audio
Music ducks under the narration and comes back. Podcasts pause and resume. The lock screen has the artwork and the controls.
Photo: mypubliclands · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
The road starts at your doorstep.
You don't need a week off, or four people to agree. The shelf sorts nearest first, so a narrated drive is usually an afternoon — not an expedition. Diablo before Big Sur.
Narrated driveMount Diablo Summit Road
60 min · 17 mi · 12 stops
Narrated driveNiles Canyon & Sunol
70 min · 21 mi · 15 stops
Narrated driveLivermore Wine Country
85 min · 27 mi · 14 stops
Narrated driveRed Rock Canyon Scenic Drive
95 min · 28 mi · 14 stops
Narrated driveBig Sur on Highway 1
70 min · 39 mi · 23 stops
Narrated driveTahoe's East Shore Drive
50 min · 25 mi · 11 stops
Each drive downloads in full — narration, map and stops — so it keeps talking where the signal doesn't.
Put the sound on.
It's the road, and a voice you half remember — somebody's dad, somebody's grandmother, whoever it was up front who always knew things.
It's short, and it's easier to feel than to explain, so we'd rather you just heard it.
Every road on earth has a story. We're going to tell all of them.
We haven't written yours yet. So name any destination you can drive to and the narrator goes reading — “reading up on Oakhurst…” — then comes back with a drive of its own, named for where you're headed, with sourced stories along the route you're actually taking.
Which means the search never dead-ends. There is no “no results near you” — there's just a road nobody has narrated yet.
Stories are written from real sources gathered for your route, and each one credits them. Story sources: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Photo: Forrest Cavale · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Say yes. Go. Listen.
Say yes to each other. Go somewhere. And on the way… listen.
And the weekend survives the thread.
Every friendship dies the same death: the group chat. Forty-seven messages, nobody decides, the weekend passes. So Getaways decides it — three ideas, one link, one tap each, and the vote closes itself once the last person is in.
What survives is one schedule everyone sees: dinner Friday at 8, the drive Saturday at 2. Type it the way you'd text it and the planner sorts it into days and hours. Friends open the link in a browser — no install to have an opinion — and when the day comes, the drive out is already downloaded.
Photo: U.S. National Archives · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Getting there is the getaway.
The destination was never the point.
Plan together. Drive narrated.
Take the long way.
Your next free weekend is closer than the thread makes it feel. Pick the days, let everyone have a say, and go — and let the road do some of the talking on the way out.
On a laptop? Point a phone camera here — it opens Getaways on the App Store.
