Comparison

Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide vs Dakota

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide

Explore Mount Rushmore National Memorial with a self-guided, narrated, and offline audio tour. Discover its history, creation, and surrounding controversies from various viewpoints. Make the most of your visit with flexible exploration and automatic audio playback.

Highlights
  • Self-guided narrated audio tour
  • Offline functionality
  • Automatic location-based audio playback
  • Multiple viewing angles
  • Historical and cultural insights
  • Flexible exploration
Read full description

Welcome to the self-guided, narrated, and fully offline driving tour of Mount Rushmore National Memorial! With this tour, you’ll see it from different angles, learn its history, and uncover little-known facts about its creation and the man behind it. Featuring riveting stories, a phenomenal narrator, and easy automatic audio, this app puts exploration in the palm of your hand! Mount Rushmore: See Mount Rushmore in a whole new way—both literally and figuratively! Seeing this incredible monument in person is nothing like the photographs, so get ready to be blown away. And to make your viewing even better, this tour leads you around the whole memorial site, featuring tons of different angles on these iconic faces. Plus, as you walk, you’ll learn everything there is to know about the story behind this memorial, including some things most folks never discover! Get to know the complicated sculptor behind it all, see a model of his original vision for the mountain, and find out why he wasn’t quite able to make good on his grand designs. Plus, get insight into the Lakota history of this mountain and the controversy that surrounds the monument to this day. Two million people visit Mount Rushmore every year. But you don’t just want to snap a picture or two and then leave, do you? Turn your trip into a rich historical expedition with this easy, totally flexible audio tour and make the most of your visit! TOUR STORIES: ■ Welcome ■ Gutzon Borglum ■ Avenue of Flags ■ Why These Four Faces? ■ Launching the Project ■ How Did They Carve It? ■ Trouble Brewing ■ The Hall of Records ■ Sculptor’s Studio ■ Presidential Trail ■ The Six Grandfathers ■ Ongoing Controversy ■ North by Northwest ■ Preservation ■ Adding New Faces? HOW IT WORKS: As you travel, audio stories play automatically based on your location. Simply go to the starting point of the tour and begin following the given route. Each story begins playing on its own, usually just before you reach a point of interest. TOUR FEATURES: ▶ Freedom of travel No scheduled tour times, no crowded buses, and no rush to keep moving past stops that interest you. You have total freedom to skip ahead, linger, and take as many photos as you’d like. ▶ Automatic play No muss, no fuss. Just follow the app’s built-in route to all the must-visit spots — the audio stories about everything you see will play automatically! ▶ Works offline Download the tour in advance and then use it seamlessly, even in areas with no service! ▶ Lifetime purchase No monthly subscription. No time limits. No usage limits. Enjoy this tour as many times as you like. ▶ Incredible stories Immerse yourself in the history, culture, and secrets of this famous site with the help of a top-tier narrator and fascinating stories written by experts. ▶ Award-winning app Featured on Thrillist and WBZ, this easy-to-use app won the Laurel Award for Technology from the Newport Mansions, who use the app for over a million tours per year. FREE DEMO vs FULL ACCESS: Check out the totally free demo to get an idea of what this tour is all about. If you like it, purchase the tour to get full access to all of the stories. IMPORTANT NOTES: Download the tour ahead of time over data or WiFi for full offline use. Be sure your phone battery is fully charged or take an external battery pack. Continued use of the GPS can drain your battery. Allow the tour to access location services and GPS tracking features to play stories automatically during the tour. NEARBY TOURS: ■ Badlands National Park Make your trip a two-for-one by paying a visit to this strange, majestic landscape. Hear about the prehistoric beasts which once roamed this land, watch a sunset like no other, and even catch a glimpse of the local bison!

About

Dakota

Discover the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, and Badlands National Park with a self-guided GPS audio tour. Enjoy automatic audio stories that play as you travel, offering freedom and flexibility to explore at your own pace. Download tours in advance for offline use.

Highlights
  • Self-guided GPS audio tours
  • Automatic location-based audio
  • Offline functionality
  • Freedom to explore at your own pace
  • Compelling historical stories
  • Lifetime purchase, no subscription
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Explore great faces and great places with this self-guided driving tour of the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, Devils Tower and Badlands National Park, South Dakota! Marvel at the variety of South Dakota’s spectacular landscapes from the prairie grassland and rock formations of the Badlands, to the mountains, canyons and forests of the Black Hills. Plus, see the mesmerizing Devils Tower geologic feature, and cross the country’s most famous monument of four presidential faces carved into Mount Rushmore off your bucket list! You’ll hold your breath as you drive along the winding Needles Highway with its iconic granite spires and narrow tunnels. Keep your eyes peeled for buffalo in Custer State Park, as well as the famous ‘begging burros’. Then, take a scenic drive along Spearfish Canyon and admire the stunning waterfalls and 1,000-foot high limestone walls, and cruise the Iron Mountain Road’s pigtail bridges and stone tunnels as you drive towards Mount Rushmore. Once on the very edge of the wild west, the area attracted hundreds of gold prospectors hoping to strike it rich. It also drew a ragtag group of frontier settlers, lawless gunfighters and adventurers here like Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane. Featuring compelling stories, a lively narrator, and easy automatic audio, this app puts exploration in the palm of your hand! Tour highlights include: ■ Badlands Wall ■ Bridal Veil Falls ■ Crazy Horse Memorial ■ Custer State Park ■ Custer Wildlife Loop Road ■ Deadwood ■ Devils Tower ■ Door Trail ■ Fossil Trail ■ Homestake Mine ■ Iron Mountain Road ■ Keystone ■ Minuteman Missile Historic Site ■ Mount Rushmore ■ Needles Highway ■ Pigtails and Tunnels ■ Prairie Dog Town ■ Rapid City ■ Roughlock Falls ■ Sylvan Lake ■ Spearfish Canyon ■ Wind Cave and Jewel Cave ■ Yellow Mounds Overlook ■ The Battle for the Black Hills ■ Custer's Last Stand ■ Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane HOW IT WORKS: As you travel, audio stories play automatically based on your location. Simply go to the starting point of the tour and begin following the given route. Each story begins playing on its own, usually just before you reach a point of interest. TOUR FEATURES: ▶ Freedom of travel No scheduled tour times, no crowded buses, and no rush to keep moving past stops that interest you. You have total freedom to skip ahead, linger, and take as many photos as you’d like. ▶ Automatic play No muss, no fuss. Just follow the app’s built-in route to all the must-visit spots — the audio stories about everything you see will play automatically! ▶ Works offline Download the tour in advance and then use it seamlessly, even in areas with no service! ▶ Lifetime purchase No monthly subscription. No time limits. No usage limits. Enjoy this tour as many times as you like. ▶ Incredible stories Immerse yourself in the history, culture, and secrets of this famous site with the help of a top-tier narrator and fascinating stories written by experts. ▶ Award-winning app Featured on Thrillist and WBZ, this easy-to-use app won the Laurel Award for Technology from the Newport Mansions, who use the app for over a million tours per year. NEARBY TOUR: Theodore Roosevelt National Park: Experience the raw, unfiltered wilderness that turned the nation’s 26th president into an ardent conservationist with this self-guided driving tour through lush forests and brilliant badlands in North Dakota. FREE DEMO: Check out the totally free demo to get an idea of what this tour is all about. If you like it, purchase the tour to access all the stories. IMPORTANT NOTES: Download the tour ahead of time over data or WiFi for full offline use. Be sure your phone battery is fully charged or take an external battery pack. Continued use of the GPS can drain your battery. Allow the tour to access location services and GPS tracking features to play stories automatically during the tour. https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide4 screens
Dakota4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: Dakota at free against Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide's free with in-app purchases. Dakota also leads on chart position (#197 vs unranked). Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide's advantage is ratings volume (20 vs 5). On price, rating, review sentiment and update cadence there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $99.99 per year and Dakota sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide against 5.0 for Dakota. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 20 and 5 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide ships an update every 16 months, Dakota every 10 months. The most recent releases landed on August 23, 2026 and August 28, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 8 level
Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide versus Dakota: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMount Rushmore Memorial GuideDakota
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.9 (20 ratings)5.0 (5 ratings) — better
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings20 — better5
Update frequencyEvery 16 monthsEvery 10 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
Best chart rank#197 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.615.6
Further details — not scored
Size158 MB168 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer17 Mile Drive Day Trips, LLCInto The Wild LLC

Customer experience

Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide

All ratings20 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Dakota

All ratings5 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide

Subscriptions1
  • Mount Rushmore Action+$99.991 Year
One-time9
  • Mount Rushmore Driving Tour$16.99
  • Custer State Park Driving Tour$16.99
  • Arizona Bundle$29.99
Show 6 more
  • Dakota Bundle$34.99
  • Crown Jewels of West$39.99
  • US East National Park Bundle$59.99
  • American Southwest Bundle$64.99
  • USA National Park$69.99
  • US West National Park Bundle$199.99
4 purchases

Dakota

One-time4
  • Black Hills$16.99
  • Custer State Park Driving Tour$16.99
  • Badlands National Park$16.99
Show 1 more
  • Dakota Bundle$34.99

Questions

Is Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide free?
Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Dakota free?
Dakota is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide or Dakota?
Dakota is rated higher. Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide averages 4.9 out of 5 from 20 ratings, while Dakota averages 5.0 from 5 ratings.
Do Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide or Dakota have ads?
Neither Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide nor Dakota shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide or Dakota?
Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide ships an update every 16 months, and Dakota every 10 months. Most recently, Mount Rushmore Memorial Guide was updated on August 23, 2026 and Dakota on August 28, 2026.

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