PlantripAudio tours

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Start at 1. Grand Canyon Visitor Center and Mather Point

Start while parked. Narration waits until you arrive at each stop.

Free audio tour6 stories

Grand Canyon Desert View Drive, Arizona

The South Rim road you can drive in your own car any day of the year, 23 miles east from the visitor center to Mary Colter's Watchtower. A copper mine that became a hotel, the painter who named a point, the 1956 collision that changed air travel, and the eleven Tribes whose homeland this is.

17 min of audio · 24 miles · Read the transcript

Your route

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Tap a stop to hear its story. Reference route · your car or maps app chooses the roads. Outline markers are optional stories.

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    Getting started

    1. Start in the right placeThis tour begins at Grand Canyon Visitor Center and Mather Point. Start while parked; the first story plays when you arrive.
    2. Let's hear itSelect this phone as the car's Bluetooth audio source and set a comfortable volume. Download the tour while you still have signal.
    3. Stories meet you thereYour phone's location starts each story automatically. Music flows straight into the narration. Keep this page open; it keeps the screen awake for GPS.
    4. You're ready to explorePark at the Grand Canyon Visitor Center on the South Rim (lots 1 to 4, a short walk from Mather Point), then press Start. The tour follows Desert View Drive (Highway 64) 23 miles east to the Watchtower at Desert View. The road is open to cars all year unless closed by snow; the park entrance fee applies.

    Drive it in a Tesla

    Connect your Tesla account, then approve Plantrip in the Tesla app. Start sends the whole tour to the car's navigation while you're parked; narration plays from this phone through the car.

    Restart from the beginning

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    Facts from Grand Canyon National Park (NPS) viewpoint, history, archeology and Desert View pages and the NPS Desert View trail guide, with the Grand Canyon Conservancy. Music: Borodin, In the Steppes of Central Asia, Musopen Symphony (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons). Narration is AI-generated. Not an official National Park Service product.