Every mile has a story. WanderWay uncovers the places you’d drive past, like timber covered bridges, state parks, historic landmarks, and panoramic overlooks, on iPhone, iPad, and Apple CarPlay, with live directional narration and Curated Routes. New in 2.6, Kids Mode brings out playgrounds, animals, splash pads and ice cream, Family Drives build in a restroom break, and the stories can be told in natural English voices.
New in 2.6 Kids Mode, Family Drives with kid stops and a restroom break on longer drives, natural English voices, and offline areas. Free to try. See what’s new ↓
Free to download. Every feature is open for 14 days. The trial doesn't renew and never charges you. Then WanderWay Unlock is a one-time purchase. Nearby places within 5 miles, details and photos, destination search, and route previews stay free.
2,000+ first-time downloads, as of November 2026.
No ads. No subscriptions. No selling your personal data.
✓ Free to try, with every feature open. Nothing is charged unless you choose to unlock.
iPhone, iPad & CarPlay · iOS 26 or later · Available on the App Store
App previews
The App Store previews, recorded in WanderWay on iPhone and Apple CarPlay.
Less passing by. More finding out.
You don’t have to plan a long trip to find something worth seeing. Three steps, then you’re on the road.
Covered bridges, overlooks, museums, and parks, in 24 categories, up to 40 miles (60 km) around you.
Browse the categories
A loop that starts and ends where you are, or a drive to a destination. Faster or Prettier sets how scenic it is.
See Curated Routes
Spoken directions and a short story as you pass a place. The drive is saved in your journal.
Explore in-dash CarPlayWhat’s new · Version 2.6
The current App Store version, released November 9, 2026. Kids Mode, Family Drives, restroom stops on long drives, natural voices, and offline areas. These are the App Store release notes.
New in 2.6
Tap Kids on the map, or turn on Kids Mode in Settings, and WanderWay shows the places kids love, like playgrounds, animals, splash pads, caves, trains and ice cream, and hides grown-up ones like memorials, cemeteries and military history. Stories get short and simple, with a fun fact, and can end with a question for the kids. CarPlay’s lists and map follow along. Kids Mode is part of WanderWay Unlock.
New in 2.6
With Kids Mode on, Curated Routes plans a Family Drive, a loop or a drive to a destination with playgrounds, ice cream and other kid stops, one of each kind. Drives of an hour or more get a restroom break about halfway, at a stop that has one or as a stop of its own. In CarPlay, the Curated Drives under Go become Family Drives.
New in 2.6
After about 90 minutes of driving, WanderWay offers the next restroom along your route, at a rest area, gas station or park, as a stop you add with one tap, in CarPlay or while WanderWay is on screen. It waits for a quiet moment, never over a turn, and asks at most once an hour. It’s on in Kids Mode, and Suggest Restroom Stops in Settings turns it on for every drive.
New in 2.6
In English, WanderWay can now speak in natural voices made right on your iPhone. They download once over Wi-Fi, about 186 MB, and Automatic uses one when they’re ready. Pick another in Settings and tap Play Sample to hear it. Settings shows the space they take, with Delete Natural Voices to free it. They need an iPhone with 6 GB of memory or more. If your iPhone gets hot on a drive, WanderWay says so once and finishes the drive in your iPhone voice.
New in 2.6
In Settings, tap Download an Area and frame part of the map to keep its sights, descriptions, photos and stories for when there’s no signal. On cellular data, WanderWay shows the size first, with or without photos. Settings › Downloads lists every route, trip and area download with its size. The map itself and new routes still need a connection. Offline downloads are part of WanderWay Unlock.
New in 2.6
Not quite the loop you wanted? Tap Different Loop for other stops, the other way round, in CarPlay too. Curated Routes now favors places you haven’t been to yet.
Earlier, 2.5 added Faster or Prettier, Drive Together for up to 6 cars, Just Wander, and Just Listen, and 2.4 added drives in CarPlay, background narration, and Open in Apple Maps, Google Maps or Waze. See every release note.
From the app
From Go in CarPlay, pick a Curated Drive or a Sunset Drive, then tap Start.
Stories keep going with the phone locked. Places from the last 7 days stay quiet.
Plan the stops here, then send the trip to Apple Maps, Google Maps or Waze.
Planning a trip? Read the guides to covered bridge road trips, Skyline Drive, Big Sur on Highway 1, and Ohio scenic byways.
Curated Sightseeing Categories
Whether you’re cruising rural backroads, wandering an old canal town, or planning an afternoon loop, filter your radar with one tap or let WanderWay narrate what lies just around the bend.
Historic timber trusses, rare Burr arches, and scenic rural stream crossings.
Ridge panoramas, river valley vistas, and roadside scenic turnouts.
County milestones, founding signposts, and forgotten local stories.
National Register listings: homes, districts, and landmarks with a documented past.
Prehistoric Hopewell and Adena mounds, canal locks, and other places that carry local heritage.
19th-century charcoal iron furnaces, abandoned stone mills, and crumbling foundations.
Castles, forts, and grand estates with a story behind the walls.
Pioneer settlements, canal history centers, and regional heritage societies.
Statues, obelisks, and monuments that mark a place or a person.
Memorial gardens and quiet places set aside to remember.
Heritage murals, sculpture, and unique roadside installations.
Roadside attractions and local favorites worth a short stop.
State parks, old-growth forests, tranquil ravines, and botanical gardens.
Nature preserves, state forests, and wildlife areas.
Hidden cascades and falls worth a short walk to see and hear.
Lighthouses that have guided ships along the shore.
Zoos and aquariums, a good reason to leave the highway.
Forts, battlefields, and memorials of military history.
Historic churches and houses of worship. Off until you turn it on.
Orchards and farm markets for fresh fruit and seasonal picking. Off until you turn it on.
Quiet burial grounds and hand-carved 18th and 19th-century markers. Off until you turn it on.
Fenced parks where a dog can run off the leash.
Public courts and pitches for a game on the way.
Other places worth a look along the route.
Spoken roadside narration
Traditional navigation only tells you when to turn. WanderWay is your local copilot, using your vehicle’s heading and speed to announce discoveries as they appear out your windows.
1829 double-barrel Burr arch truss over Seven Mile Creek. One of the oldest surviving covered bridges in the nation.
Early Scioto Valley settlement grounds with hand-carved sandstone markers dating back to 1804.
Picturesque 337-acre reservoir surrounded by forested Appalachian foothills. Scenic overlook just ahead.
Story Mode
As you approach a place, hear a short story about it, or tap “Listen to the story” on its page. While you navigate, the Nearby panel still shows the detour time to each nearby place.
Turn on Narrate Without a Route, open WanderWay, and drive. Nearby places, and their stories, are spoken as you pass. It keeps going with your iPhone locked and stops when you park.
With Apple Intelligence, stories are written on your iPhone from the place’s description. Other iPhone models read a shortened description.
The Lock Screen and the Dynamic Island show your next turn, plus the next place ahead and how far away it is.
Make the map match your mood
Tap the category button at the top of the map, or the one in the Nearby panel, and choose the places you want to find. The menu stays open while you choose, so you can Hide All, then pick a few. Spend an afternoon among parks and gardens, look for a museum, or focus on sights you can enjoy from the road.
An afternoon. A little curiosity.
Take a Sunday drive with Curated Routes. Choose a time budget from 30 minutes to five hours, highlight the sights you love, and preview a scenic loop that starts and finishes where you are, or a drive to a destination. The planner checks the forecast, and you can choose how scenic any route is.
Start with the time you have
Open Curated Routes, choose a duration (from 30 min up to 5 hr), and prioritize your favorite kinds of sights. Want winding country roads? Turn on “Prefer Scenic Backroads” to bypass multilane interstates.
Tap Generate Route, and the planner proposes a loop past nearby sights, with each stop, the total time, and the extra driving and distance. Like it? Tap Start Drive. Want something different? Tap Generate Again.
See the 2.5 screens ↗Faster or Prettier
The route card slider is Faster or Prettier. Scenic, up to a quarter more time, is free. Very scenic and Most scenic need Unlock and take backroads. Under the slider, See What You'll Pass lists the sights and byways on that drive.
The full 2.5 notes also cover Drive Together, Just Wander, Just Listen, and offline stories.
Generate closed-circuit loops that return home without backtracking. Preview every waypoint before you pull out of the driveway.
Favor US scenic byways (solid, lighter lines on the map since 2.5) and prefer backroads to guide your drive through tree-lined state routes, creek valleys, and quiet rural counties.
With Adjust for Weather on, a wet forecast tips the plan toward indoor stops.
Need a place to start? Read our guides to finding covered bridges along your drive, Ohio scenic byways and scenic loops, Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park, and Big Sur on California’s Highway 1.
Road Trip Journal & Passport
Each drive you navigate is saved with the roads you drove, the places you passed, and the states or provinces you crossed. Your Road Trip Journal stays on your iPhone.
Designed for the dash
Bring your curiosities to your vehicle’s center display. Browse nearby sights with their detour times, hear a place’s story, and see the rest of your drive with Show Route Overview.
Plug in your iPhone and start driving. Works natively with Apple CarPlay for safe, passenger-friendly discovery.
Inside WanderWay
The WanderWay 2.6 App Store screenshots. Select any screen to inspect in full detail.
On the record
WanderWay is new and built by one developer. These dates and approvals come from Apple, so you can confirm them yourself.
WanderWay passed Apple’s App Review and went live for iPhone and CarPlay.
My Places, What did I just pass?, longer scenic detours, Italian, and iPad, plus rerouting that follows your direction of travel and better place names. Still free to download with a free trial of every feature, then a one-time purchase.
Navigation apps need Apple’s approval before they can run on a car’s CarPlay display. WanderWay has it.
The current App Store version. Kids Mode, Family Drives with kid stops and a restroom break on longer drives, natural English voices, and Download an Area. Version 2.5, released November 4, 2026, added Faster or Prettier, Drive Together, Just Listen, and Just Wander, and 2.5.1 followed on November 6.
Clear and transparent
WanderWay is an independent project created to make drives more rewarding. Need help or have suggestions? Visit our Support Guide or get in touch through our contact page.
WanderWay uses Apple Maps for turn-by-turn routing, so you get the same reliable routing engine that powers Apple Maps. What WanderWay adds is the discovery layer: 24 place categories, Curated Routes, and spoken directional narration that Apple Maps does not provide.
Standard navigation apps are built for speed and efficiency—getting you from A to B as fast as possible on highways. WanderWay is built for the journey: discovering hidden historic sites, covered bridges, scenic overlooks, and state parks along your route, complete with spoken directional narration and Curated Routes.
WanderWay 2.6, released November 9, 2026, makes room for the whole family. Kids Mode shows the places kids love, like playgrounds, animals, splash pads, caves, trains and ice cream, hides grown-up ones like memorials, cemeteries and military history, and keeps stories short and simple; CarPlay follows along. With Kids Mode on, Curated Routes plans a Family Drive with kid stops and, on drives of an hour or more, a restroom break about halfway. After about 90 minutes of driving, WanderWay can offer the next restroom along your route as a one-tap stop. Natural voices speak English in voices made right on your iPhone (about 186 MB, for iPhones with 6 GB of memory or more). Download an Area keeps part of the map’s sights, photos and stories for when there’s no signal. Kids Mode and offline downloads are part of WanderWay Unlock.
Faster or Prettier: A new slider on the route card goes from the fastest route to one up to twice as long, at most 4 extra hours. Scenic adds up to a quarter more time for sights along the way and is free. Very scenic and Most scenic add more time and take backroads instead of highways. They're part of WanderWay Unlock.; See What You'll Pass: Under the slider, the kinds of sights your route stops at and the byways it follows, such as a viewpoint, a covered bridge or a waterfall.; Drive Together: Driving with friends in another car? Tap Drive Together on the route card and send them the link or QR code. Up to 6 cars see each other on the map, and when you change the route, they can follow it. Starting is part of WanderWay Unlock. Joining is free.; Just Listen, No Destination: Tap Just Listen above Nearby and WanderWay tells the story of each place as you reach it, with no destination and no route. Tap Stop Listening to end it. Part of WanderWay Unlock.; Just Wander: Walk wherever you like, with no route and no stops, and hear the story of each place as you reach it. The way back to your car is one tap away.; Town Guide on Walks: On a walk, read the town's travel guide from Wikivoyage: what to see, what to do and how to get around.; Better Walking Tours: The walking card turns with you and shows how far the next stop is. At the end, see which stops you heard and skipped, and find your walks in Journal and Passport.; Just Listen in CarPlay: Start Just Listen right from the CarPlay map.; Nearby Keeps to Your Radius: Nearby now stays within the radius you pick, in the list, on the map and in the stories.; Scenic in CarPlay: The trip preview in CarPlay now offers Scenic beside the fastest route.; Stays Scenic: If you go off route, WanderWay keeps your scenic stops and backroads.; Stories Offline: An offline download now keeps each place's story too, so you still hear them without signal. Each download shows how many stories it has and how much space it uses. Offline downloads are part of WanderWay Unlock.; Sunset Drives on Local Time: Sunset Drives use the evening and the clock where the spot is, even when your iPhone is set to another time zone.; Avoid Tolls or Highways for One Drive: Avoid Tolls and Avoid Highways in Route options now change only the drive you're on. Every new drive starts from the setting, now in Settings under Routes. It's free.; Better Landmarks: A restaurant, bar or shop no longer shows up as a landmark just because it has a Wikipedia page.; Smoother Map: The map moves more smoothly, and byway lines are now solid and lighter.
2.5.1, released November 6, 2026, fixed turn-by-turn guidance at roundabouts so the next step advances correctly, and Very scenic and Most scenic began taking backroads instead of highways, with sights along that drive. Those fixes and the 2.5 features, including Faster or Prettier, Drive Together, Just Listen, and Just Wander, are all in 2.6.
No. WanderWay has zero ads, zero recurring subscriptions, and zero selling or tracking of personal data. It’s free to download with a free trial. After that, a one-time purchase keeps these unlocked: navigation on iPhone and CarPlay, Story Mode while you drive, Narrate Without a Route, the Very scenic and Most scenic route levels, curated drives, Kids Mode, offline downloads, and searches up to 40 miles. Nearby places within 5 miles, place details and photos, destination search, and route previews are always free.
WanderWay monitors your vehicle’s real-time heading and speed. When you approach an interesting site, it announces its position relative to your vehicle: “Ahead on your right, Roberts Covered Bridge” so you never have to look down at your screen while driving.
As you approach a place, WanderWay reads a short story about it. Turn it on in Settings › Points of Interest › Narration Length › Story, or tap “Listen to the story” on a place page to hear it right away. With Apple Intelligence, stories are written on your iPhone from the place’s description. Other iPhone models read a shortened description.
Yes, on your iPhone. Each drive you navigate is saved to your Road Trip Journal with the roads you drove, its distance and time, the places you passed, and the states or provinces it crossed. You can show the photos you took along the way, which stay in your photo library, and Share Drive turns any drive into a picture card. WanderWay keeps no location history or routes on a server.
Yes, for places. You can download the places and descriptions along your planned route before heading into river valleys or remote hills where cellular reception is spotty, and since 2.6, Download an Area in Settings keeps a whole part of the map’s sights, descriptions, photos and stories. The map itself and new routes still need a connection, so set up your route before you lose signal.
Yes, on iPhone. WanderWay runs on Apple CarPlay with turn-by-turn guidance, nearby sights with detour times, and drives you can start from search, a saved trip, a favorite, or by voice. CarPlay includes a WanderWay map card on CarPlay Dashboard with Nearby Sights and Where to? shortcuts, Show Route Overview, Hear the Story, a map and turn details in the instrument cluster in cars that support it, and Resume if the car’s built-in navigation takes over. In 2.2, Just Passed and Add a Stop are on CarPlay too. iPad doesn’t include CarPlay.
Yes. On iPhone, press and hold anywhere on the map to drop a pin, named from the nearest address. Tap Search Here to list tourist sites within your chosen radius around the pin instead of around you, use the directions button to route there, or close the pin to return the list to your surroundings. Dropping a pin isn’t available during active navigation.
WanderWay is free to try, so you can try everything first. The trial ends on its own and never charges you. If you buy the unlock and change your mind, refunds go through Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com; Apple reviews each request, and customers in some regions, such as the EU and UK, can also cancel within their legal withdrawal period.
Ready for your next drive
Every feature is open for 14 days. The trial doesn't renew and never charges you. Then WanderWay Unlock is a one-time purchase. Nearby places within 5 miles, details and photos, destination search, and route previews stay free.
2,000+ first-time downloads, as of November 2026. Version 2.6 with Kids Mode is on the App Store now. iPhone, iPad, and Apple CarPlay on iOS 26 or later. No ads and no subscription.
