We tried a self-guided Tetons audio tour

Our small-town Independence Day celebration marked our final day in the Yellowstone region, and on July 5th we left Idaho and ventured into Wyoming, to spend a week and a half camping inside Grand Teton National Park. We wanted to maximize our time, but we were feeling overwhelmed. Grand Teton isn't a big park, especially compared to Yellowstone, but we were nevertheless frozen. We had gotten so many incredible recommendations of things to do from our fellow travelers on Instagram, plus we still had our itinerary from our 2020 trip-that-wasn't. We were also battling a nomad-related struggle. 2023 was shaping up to be an epic year already, and we were  worried that we might be getting oversaturated by these famous places and their spectacular beauty. How could we make sure we gave the Tetons the respect and awe they deserve? The last thing we wanted was to feel burnout in this park that we've wanted to visit for years.

We already have to drive hours and hours on travel days, and so when it comes to scenic driving, we make sure the scenery is worth it before putting ourselves back in the truck. This is typically why I avoid self-guided audio tours, but they always seem to pop up when I'm researching the top things to do when we get to new places. Maybe it was our lack of guidance on the Mesa Falls Scenic Byway, but we had audio tours on the brain. It could be fun learning about the Tetons in this way. We could pack a picnic, drive around the park, and listen to stories of the park's history, landscape, and various features.

I purchased a driving audio tour from Action Tour Guide on TripAdvisor. It was inexpensive, only $14.99 to download access to use indefinitely, at any start date. There weren't many reviews, but the company does hold a Viator badge of excellence. The app itself had mediocre reviews, which I expect for something technological, but I was able to install the app and download my tour with no problems. In fact, the tour offered two versions, depending on where we wanted to start. The instructions advised to download both versions, which I did.

A couple days later, we set out to Jackson to begin our tour at the Visitor's Center. The app had me allow for location tracking, so that when we lost cell service, it would still play. It's a really cool concept; as long as you drive past the tour stop, the app will automatically tell you about it. Good idea in theory; kind of a mess in practice. On our way to the Visitor's Center, we happened to pass a few other stops that were on an alternate route offered by the tour, and even though we weren't ready to start yet, the app would start playing. We thought because it was giving us directions to our starting point that it would start there, but the app doesn't seem to be set up that way.

The problems continued when we left the Visitor's Center and drove through Jackson toward Grand Teton Village. We saw a sign that Moose-Wilson Road to Moose Junction would be closed in 7 miles, and that's where the tour was taking us. We went as far as we could, listening to the tour along the way, but at the Village, we were forced to turn around. I checked NPS alerts (something I should have done before we left), and evidently the road was closed weekdays and open on weekends. It was a Friday. We headed back through Jackson, which was a tough feat considering the town was so busy this time of year. It would take us about 40 minutes just to get across town. We had also already seen Jackson because we ran some errands there when we first arrived to the area, so already we felt like we were wasting time. We should have just started at the Visitor's Center and taken the alternate route - or better yet, started at our campground and skipped the first few stops that we already knew! We were clearly novices at this audio tour thing.

Because we had to turn around and retrace our steps, we discovered that the app won't replay stops it knows you've already been to. This was nice because we didn't have to hear the information twice. Of course it ended up being a bit of an issue when we "retraced" the alternate route and it thought we already listened to those stops. But I just manually went into the app and played them.

The way the alternate route works is that some stops give the same information as the main route, and a few others are specific to that area. So some of the stops were repeats, and we didn't need to play them again. Others were new, and I pushed play whenever we got to that stop, which was easy to find because there is an integrated map in the app. We're not sure if these alternative stops were purposely created because Moose Junction was closed at times. If that's the case, then these app developers are really on the ball, preemptively creating routes for upcoming closures. If not, then perhaps they know that some people won't want to wade through the Jackson traffic. Either way, we were happy to have the alternates.

Thankfully, once we got on our new route and were no longer retracing our steps, things started looking up. We were able to venture up Route 191 over to Teton Park Road and stop at the park's visitor center to grab our 17th National Park pin. The tour took us past the Moose entrance that was closed, and before we knew it, we were back on our originally planned route. We listened to the couple of stops we missed and then started following the guidance. We were led down a side road to the Chapel of the Transfiguration, an Episcopal church that was built so the settlers in the area could worship without needing to go all the way to Jackson. Right away, we were thankful for the audio tour, because this was a place we probably never would have stopped on our own, and it was gorgeous. The church was built specifically to highlight the view of Teton Range. Instead of a pulpit with stained glass and ornamental designs behind it, there is a large window, so the mountains become the art. Brilliant. Visitors are allowed to walk the grounds and enter inside the chapel, and we even saw a sign that they still hold Sunday communions there. We imagine it gets fairly crowded, because in addition to the pews inside, there are also rows lining each side of the outside of the chapel.

The tour took us past several overlooks, where we learned the names of all the peaks in the range, with of course, the highest being Grand Teton itself. Then we approached lines of cars and realized that we were entering the territory of what is arguably Teton's most popular attraction, Jenny Lake. We learned that the lake was named after a Native American guide. We lucked out by finding an open parking spot near the visitor's center and took the short walk to the lakeside, which was hopping with boaters, swimmers, and loungers. We walked about a mile along the shoreline trail before heading back to the truck. Our little adventures in fresh air were most welcome, so we could break up the drive time.

Continuing north, we went past Mount Moran and Jackson Lake. Still trying to figure out when the audio for these tours was made, we were told that Jackson Lake was dismally low. We all know that this past winter was a gift to water levels, so when we drove by, the lake was  sparkling with plenty of blue water. We also saw lots of water in the Jackson Dam spillway.

An offshoot near Jackson Lake took us to Colter Bay, which houses a popular marina. Then soon we hit the official end of the tour, the northern entrance welcome sign. Yellowstone's entrance would be only 30ish miles beyond that, giving us a real feel of just how close the two parks are, and how precious all this land is. We turned around in the welcome sign pullout, because otherwise soon the Yellowstone Lake magnet would pull us again, and we weren't about to go there. We still had lots more driving to do.

Even though the tour had ended, several extra stops were offered if we wanted to cut back to Route 191, which was the way we needed to go home anyway. We got to see the famous river overlook, Oxbow Bend, known for amazing wildlife and even more amazing Teton views. Then we stopped at the Snake River Overlook, where the peaks meet the river in a picturesque setting - so picturesque, that Ansel Adams once took a famous photo here. How famous? It's part of the Voyager's gold album that's floating in space, waiting for aliens to find it and see the wonders of planet earth. (Of course we're in on the secret, that the aliens are already here)!

Our tour extras ended at Mormon Row, a street of old homes and barns where Mormons settled in the 1890s, and a famous area for photographers to capture these old buildings with the Tetons behind them. We were camping not far from Mormon Row and had already stopped by, and so we figured this was a good time to head back to the trailer.

All in all, we thought the audio tour was fantastic and would absolutely do more as we venture to new areas. The tours aren't just for national parks. Action Tour Guide has tours for several states, and we even saw a couple that we probably could have used when we were back in Massachusetts, like Martha's Vineyard and Salem. The app worked with no real technical issues, and if we hadn't needed to turn around, it would have been flawless. The information was good, the integrated map worked nicely, and we definitely learned a lot more than if we had just done a few excursions on our own. Because it was self-paced, we got to decide where we wanted to stop and for how long. We had the comforts of Clyde, where we could bring all of our belongings and listen to whatever music we wanted between stops. And, best of all, the tour helped us orient ourselves in the park, so the next times we went out, we knew exactly where we wanted to go. We'll talk about those adventures in the next blog post.