Gettysburg Auto Tour Options

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Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, is a major spot in United States history. Today it is a National Park and memorial for the Battle of Gettysburg that happened during the Civil War of the United States.

Exploring the battlefields can be interesting and exhausting, however, the park has provided visitors with an auto tour for as long as I personally can remember. The tour takes you from point to point throughout the battlefield giving you information about each location in a seven to fifteen-minute narration for each spot.

When I was around 7 or 8, my parents piled us into our large conversion van, put in the cassette tape and off we went following the guided tour one stop at a time to learn about the different spots throughout the battle of Gettysburg. However, the auto tour only gave us highlights of the monuments and battlefields.

While I remember my dad picking up the multi-cassette pack in a local souvenir shop in the early 90’s, this time around there are a few other options available for those who want to explore this significant part of American History. Despite wanting to save money by utilizing something my parents invested in years ago, my car doesn’t have a cassette player. Yes there are options for purchasing hookups for such occasions, I didn’t see the need. After all, we live in a world where we can get information at our fingertips. So I left dad’s cassette tapes at home and prayed to Google that we would find something that worked.

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Upon our arrival to Gettysburg we found that the visitors center offers their own audio guided tour for around $30 which is likely the same version my dad purchased so many years ago, but is now available on CD.

The visitor center also offers guest the option to have a guided tour by one of their trained professionals. Here’s the catch, the guide drives your car for two hours while giving you the information about the three-day battle. This comes with a hefty price starting at $150 and must be reserved minimally three days before your tour. We knew this option was not in our budget or comfort zones.

So off we went looking for some free audio tours to help guide us around the Gettysburg battlefield.

The first thing we tried was the app. After all these days

There’s an app for everything!

The first app we tried was Gettysburg Battle App.

The app looked promising, mostly because it was the first option to come up on our Google search for “Free Gettysburg Audio Tour”. While the app provides users with some great information, it does not provide the actual audio portion of the tour. Each spot is highlighted and you can easily follow the Gettysburg battlefield map through their GPS option to find the audio tour stops, but upon arrival to the stops you will have to re-open the app and read the information. Which can be difficult for some individuals because of size of text, visibility, battery power, etc.

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Next we tried the Tour Buddy App for Gettysburg.

This app looked like it would be a great option to co-inside with the Gettysburg map from the first app. However, because of the lack of cell service we just could not get this app to work. The features show the possibility of an audio tour, but since we didn’t have access we can’t comment on how good this option is but wanted to provide the information considering it is available.

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Once we realized that the App option wasn’t working to our best abilities thanks to lack of cell service, weather and app options we moved on to YouTube.

The most popular audio tour on YouTube, link to stop 1 below, followed the visitor centers map of Gettysburg, but left out one or two stops towards the end. We listened, along with over 1,400 other viewers as the videos took us into the history significance of each stop. This alternative was great because we were able to skip ahead on things we had already seen or known while also being able to see if we were truly in the right location for according to the map of Gettysburg.

The videos also provided me, who is directionally challenged, with the opportunity to understand any points of information given related to directions. This is because the video usually pointed towards the direction in which the information was highlighting, giving me a better perspective of how the battles where fought.

So while there are a few options to choose from, YouTube gave us the best option for our trip. These tours don’t give you in-depth information about each monument throughout the battlefield, not does the map offer you information on where to find each individual monument either, they do give you the overall idea of how the battle of Gettysburg was fought in the comfort of whatever vehicle you choose.

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The Portly Passengers provides plus size inclusive travel tips and advice for anyone who is looking to explore the world. From seat sizes on airplanes to exploring museums, restaurants, and nature Melissa & Peter have the experience and stories to help guide you through it.