Leave a Review Washington DC
Currently Useless
App will not locate me on a map & tells me to update my privacy settings. I’ve done this, & it continues to tell me to update. There’s no method for override—by, for example, letting me input my current location & begin directions from there, so it’s useless.moiutv shut ffhjkjn
Developer Response
Our system is designed so that one can start the tour at any location along the route. The route is signified by the blue route line on the App map with the red numbered circles at each site. It is not designed to lead to from your hotel, for example, to the tour route. But you can use Google Maps, or some other service, to get to one of the locations on the tour route. From there you just follow the tour route. Keep in mind that the sites on the tour are numbered sequentially. So you must follow the route in the direction of the ascending numbers. The route is set so lead you in the most efficient manner to all the various key locations to see. Please give our App a try again. You'll enjoy it!Good, but needs improvement
Overall we were pleased with the app and how it guided us on a driving tour of the city.
There were some instances of being unable to follow the guidance due to road blockages or being unable to turn left when the app said to due to a “no left turns” arrow.
One suggested improvement is to give the user an ability to choose the stops to have on the tour and then only put those stops on the tour. Therefore making it as short or as long as they want.
There were many stops that we didn’t care for.Show lessIxoye41
Developer Response
Thank you for your helpful comments. As of October 15, 2921 the tour has been updated with additional prompts for more warnings about upcoming turns. Also there are new locations on the tour. One can customize the tour by simply skipping the sites you don't want to see and taking you own shortcut to the next section you want to see. Once back on the defined route the GPS tour will pick up again and continue on. We hope this tip is helpful and you'll give it another try.Don’t waste your money
The app wants you to set location service to always allow, however, that is no longer a option on iPhone. The GPS on the app will not work.C.K.1235
Developer Response
Sorry you had problems. When in the area of the tour, if your device is not set to automatically connect to GPS, when you open the App a signal will flash in the lower right corner reminding you to allow connection to GPS. All you need to do is tap that you will be connected. Then off you go. This is a nice feature, because If you are new in the area of the tour, you can tap your way through the entire tour. Some do this to get a "heads up" on where the tour will be taking them. Others find it fun when they get home to show others exactly where they went on the tour. We hope this note is helpful and you will try it again.Our family had so much fun!
During this time of COVID, this was a great alternative for our family to get a chance to see DC. The directions given throughout the tour were fantastic and easy to follow. I loved all the historical information and also how we were taken to areas that were off the beaten path. Yes hank you for sharing this with everyone!! I highly recommend *****Show lessTravelPDX
Developer Response
Our team is very glad you had a fun experience using this tour. We much appreciate, and thank you, for your comments.Really enjoyed it!
I was hesitant to spend the money after reading the reviews, but I’m so glad we did! We are new to the area, having been stationed here in August.
My parents came to visit for Christmas and in the midst of pretty crappy weather and Covid closures, we didn’t have much to offer them. We knew we were going to at least drive around DC and in my search for things to see on a driving tour I found this app.
We started at number 1, driving down Pennsylvania away from the Capitol. We followed it all the way through number 110ish (Georgetown area) when it got too dark to really enjoy the sights.
We started on a Wednesday around 2pm the week after Christmas. I’m sure the traffic was lighter than normal, although there’s never NOT traffic in DC.
We encountered a couple blocked roads, cause you know, DC 🤷🏼♀️We simply went up a block or two and turned around to rejoin the route on the other side of the block. One reviewer complained that the app didn’t know about blocked roads, and I’m not sure how they expect the app to know this...they randomly block roads in DC all the time for various reasons. Even Google doesn’t know which ones. It’s basic navigation skills to go around them.
We found the narration to be interesting and funny-ish. There were some corny ones, but they seemed intentional - like they were laughing at themselves too. The info was good and well timed. I kept shaking my head at what must have gone into timing all those at the right spot on the road and getting them the right length.
There were a few that didn’t have time to finish before the next one started, but nothing crazy and it was like twice out of the hundred plus points we did.
We did find that the notification of turns came too late a few times, but I was the passenger running the app so I would swipe out of the pop up pictures that went with the points and watch for turns. You definitely need someone other than the driver actually watching the phone because trying to listen to directions and watch for turns and everything would have been too much. It could be done, but it would have to be by someone really familiar with DC I would think.
One thing that did annoy me repeatedly was the fact that, if we were moving, the map constantly popped back to our “car dot”. I was unable to zoom out or scroll around the map outside of the default car dot view. So sometimes it was hard for me to look ahead for those turns. If we were stopped I could scroll around the map, but if we were moving it followed the car only. So if there was a way to explore the map and then a button to make it go back to my location (like Google maps) I would have found that very helpful as the navigator.
We adapted and it was a very smooth and fun tour! My parents enjoyed it a lot. The narrators’ voices didn’t annoy me (this is huge for me as I’m someone who just gets annoyed by certain voices 😂), the information was thorough and interesting, and over all the app was easy to use.
I hate that it got such crappy reviews from other people. A lot of those kind of screamed “user error” to me. If you want to have your hand held as you tour DC, go on a guided tour. If you’re grown up enough to find your way around and adapt when things come up, do this!Show lessLivsmyangel
Good Info and directions.
Good info and directions. A little improvement is needed to synchronize with the GPSIrJBG
Developer Response
You will be happy to know that we have just released an improved version of that does exactly what you suggest. We also added some new sites along the route, like the very new General and President Eisenhower Memorial. We strive to keep all our tours up-to-date and really appreciate you taking the time to give us your comment.Not happy 😞
My family and I was looking forward to this app especially because of the holidays and with COVID we could drive around and still learn DC and it’s history. After getting it started it would not connect directly to our vehicle like it said and we got off the tour several times because of the directions being late or not being clear. We missed over half of DC because of this. This was my daughters first time to DC and she was very excited and after everything started going rough we lost complete interest and just returned to our families home. Very unhappy and wish I could get a refund.Show lessAngjen24
Developer Response
Our SelfTour team is very sorry you had a difficult time using our driving tour. We want you to know that we have just released an updated version of the tour in which we have worked hard to make following the tour even easier. Since you purchased the tour, you do own it. This means you can download the update at no cost and give the tour another try, or perhaps just the parts that you missed. Thank you for your comments.Mediocre Tour/Hard to Follow Driving Directions
The tour was mediocre at best, and the driving instructions were extremely delayed.
App does not recognize road blockages, so you have to figure out your own way to certain sites.566chicken
Developer Response
We appreciate you taking time to review our Drive Washington DC tour. Washington’s traffic can be difficult but the best way to enjoy the tour is to take it slowly. Unlike Wayz, or other GPS systems that speak only directions, our system must speak both the directions and each site’s descriptive narration, which takes longer. This is why the tour suggests staying in the slower lane, allowing more time to hear the fascinating info about the sites and to have more time to react to the spoken directions. We hope you will try it again!Awesome Time
We loved it, saw things we would have never seen, narration was great. Be careful when going out to the Iwo Jima Monument the spoken directions are somewhat incomplete, we got a little off track but used Wayz to get back in track.Jbirs15100
Developer Response
We are very pleased that you enjoyed the tour and took the time to let us know. Yes going across the Potomac into Rosslyn is a maze of roads. Glad you made it without getting too far off course! Thank you for your very nice review.Tricky to Learn - But Well Worth It!
We were in DC for a few days during the COVID-19 pandemic and wanted to learn about the city. I was a bit hesitant to try this app tour because of the bad reviews, but we decided to give it a shot and it was super helpful!!!
It is a bit tricky to learn how to use and absolutely will cause frustration at first. Using this app meant that I needed to navigate a new city with unfamiliar streets and traffic patterns, avoid people that are actually trying to go somewhere, follow verbal driving directions, look at a map, listen to the tour information, and look at the various buildings I was trying to learn about. This is a lot of multi-tasking. It actually took about 40 stages of this tour to get comfortable with using the app. I also expected this tour to take about 1 ½ hours, but this tour has a ton of information and highlights around 150 locations. It took us about 4-5 hours over 3 days to finish this tour.
As far as the actual content of the tour, I felt like they shared the right amount of information, just enough to be interesting but not too much to make it boring. I also like that they used three voices, two for the actual tour and another voice for the directions.
One tech thing that was frustrating, was that when driving from location to location, the app would suddenly switch from the map view to show the image(s) for that location. This is understandable, but it was also super unhelpful from time to time, as I often needed to view the map right when the app would switch to a picture. This was especially pointless when it would switch to the “no image for this location” screen during the navigation prompts, exactly when I needed to figure out where to go by looking at the map!!! I ended up missing a turn more than once when this happened and at one point when I was still figuring out the app, I ended up in across the Potomac in Virginia driving down the George Washington Memorial Parkway toward the Ronald Reagan National Airport. Eventually, I got turned around in the airport, but it literally took 45 minutes to get back to the spot in the tour where we left off. After this, I learned to switch back to the map view pretty quickly whenever it switched to a picture.
So the long and the short of it is that this is a great tour, but you will likely need to be a bit techy and it will take time to learn how to navigate and use it while you are driving. I honestly think that this tour would be most helpful the second time through after you have learned the route and become a bit more familiar with the city. Frustrations aside, thanks to everyone who helped make this tour. It was super awesome to be able to learn so much about DC in the limited about of time we had this week.Show lessMeap!
