Your exploration sidekick
Three steps to curious exploration
Download what interests you
Choose from hundreds of content packs covering everything from U.S. states and ecoregions to national forests, river basins, and Native American lands. Going somewhere specific? Grab those. Just curious about where you already are? There's a pack for that.
Let it run
Open the app, connect to your audio (car Bluetooth, earbuds, whatever), and go about your day. Kolea works quietly in the background, tracking your location and telling you all about it without any input from you.
Learn as you explore
Cross into a new ecoregion on your morning run? Kolea tells you about it. Pass a historical marker on your commute? You'll actually know what it commemorates. Enter a different county? Learn what makes it unique. No tapping required.
Hear Kolea in action
Listen to real examples of what you'll hear as you explore. Each narration is automatically triggered based on where you are.
Glacier National Park
Montana
Frederick County
Maryland
Southern California Mountains
California
Like having a knowledgeable friend in the passenger seat
You know that person who always seems to know interesting things about every place you visit? The one who points out geological features, mentions historical tidbits, and explains why the landscape looks the way it does?
That's Kolea. Except it never gets tired, works in places with no cell service, and doesn't mind if you zone out for a while.
It's an audio companion that automatically shares stories about your surroundings as you move through them, whether you're crossing state lines, walking through a city park, or taking the scenic route home from work.
Not just another app you have to remember to use
Truly automatic
Open it once, let it run. Kolea figures out where you are and what's interesting about it. You just listen. No need to pull over and search, no reading while walking.
Works completely offline
Download content packs then go explore anywhere: remote forest roads, cell-service dead zones, middle-of-nowhere Wyoming. Kolea doesn't need a connection.
Knows when to speak up
Kolea shares information when you enter new places or pass interesting features. It's not a constant stream, just interesting information delivered at the right moments.
Made for curious people
If you're the type who wonders "what's that?" while looking out the window, Kolea is for you. If you've ever wished you understood wherever you are better, this is it.
Questions?
- We've got hundreds of content packs covering geography, ecosystems, history, and more across the entire United States. Some areas have more detailed coverage than others, but there's interesting content for just about anywhere you go.
- Absolutely! You might be surprised by how much you can learn about places you drive or walk through every day. Maybe your regular route crosses three different ecoregions and two historical events happened at that intersection you sit at every morning.
- Kolea narrates intermittently, not constantly; really only when you enter a new place or pass something notable. Think of it like a passenger who occasionally points out something cool, not a backseat tour guide who won't stop talking. Sometimes it can get overly enthusiastic but you can also pause it anytime or adjust when it talks or what it talks about.
- Usually not more than a few dozen MB, depending on the pack. You should be able to download a handful for trips as well as a few for your home region. It's way less storage than a Netflix download. The real limit is how much you want to hear from it.
- Yep and yep! If your car or earbuds can play music from your phone, they can play Kolea. Also works fine through your phone speaker if that's your preference.
- That's the whole point! Download your content packs while you have an internet connection and Kolea works perfectly offline. We've been in places where we can barely get GPS, and Kolea keeps right on narrating.
- Yes. Love learning about geology but not interested in Civil War battles? You can choose what content you download and adjust the types of content Kolea shares. Want to focus just on natural history during a hike? You can do that.
Stay in the loop
Get updates about new content packs and features. We email rarely, only when there's something actually worth sharing.
Beta
Join us on the journey
Kolea is currently in beta, which means we're still refining things. You might encounter the occasional quirk such as a screen layout that's slightly off, or a setting that does something weird. We're working to make it better with every update, and your feedback genuinely helps us improve.