Highly recommend! Absolutely amazing. Learned so much from the audio… easy to use audio listen through your CarPlay
About Activity
What's Included
Includes
- Just bring your car and phone; the app guides your tour.
- Support is available via chat, email, or phone if you need help.
- Planning tools, route maps, scenic stops, and area previews included.
- Private tour experience for your family, in your own car.
- Lifetime access: use the tour anytime and keep it for future trips.
- Works offline with GPS route guidance and automatic audio stories.
- One purchase covers everyone in your car, not per person.
- Flexible tour: start, stop, and pause anytime during your trip.
- Access your tour in our separate audio tour app after booking.
- Hidden gems and local stories included along the route.
Excludes
- No live guide. Entrance fees, parking, food, and car rental are separate.
Departure & Return
Departure Point
- Begin from the Mesa Verde National Park Entrance Sign, CO 81328, USA. After booking the tour, search your emails and texts for "audio tour". Your tour is VALID FOREVER, so follow these instructions NOW to finish setting up the tour while you have Wi-Fi/data. Do NOT wait until you are onsite.
Itinerary
Coming up in a moment is Mancos Valley Overlook, boasting an amazing vista of the valley far below us and the mountains beyond. From here, you can see some of the distinct ecosystems in these mountains. There’s the shrub-steppe community at lower elevations dominated by plants like sagebrush and rabbitbrush. A little higher up is the pinyon-juniper woodland, also known as the “pygmy forest.” Here, pinyon and juniper trees are king. It’s called a pygmy forest because these trees don’t typically grow more than 30 feet tall. Note: The tour is over 30 miles long, with more than 52 audio stories, and takes about 2-3 hours to complete. New, Lifetime access, no expiry. Use it anytime, on any trip, as many times as you want.
Welcome to the sacred land of Mesa Verde! This tour begins at the Mesa Verde National Park Entrance Sign. If you’re already here, pause and snap an iconic photo with the sign before beginning. If you’d like to learn a bit more about the tour’s features, click on Learn More. Otherwise, let’s get started!
We’re approaching a detour opportunity for one of Mesa Verde’s most popular hiking trails: Point Lookout Trail. It’s only two miles long, but climbs 500 feet in elevation. Most of it is switchbacks to get to the top of the butte and then a bit of flatness up to the edge. I’d consider it a moderate hike that can take up to two hours.
Around 1200 C.E., up to 35,000 Ancestral Puebloans called Montezuma Valley their home. That’s more than the number of people living there today! From this overlook, we can also see the distinctive Knife Edge rock formation. It’ll be that jagged, triangular spit of rock jutting across the landscape.
Coming up in just a minute, we’ll have the chance to visit the highest point in Mesa Verde: Park Point. Sitting at 8,572 feet above sea level, there’s not much you can’t see from up here. It’s also known to be a bit cooler and breezy at the peak, so this might be particularly nice if you’re visiting on a hot day.
Coming up soon is Geologic Overlook, offering great views of Mesa Verda’s fascinating geologic past. From here, we’ll be able to see the four distinct layers of stone that accumulated to make up much of the park today.
We’re approaching the most famous cliff dwellings in this region, but we also have the option to take a detour to another couple structures that are off the beaten path. The detour leads to Long House and Step House, and you can actually walk through these ancient historic sites. The detour does add about an hour of driving in total, but it’s worth it if you want to add something extra to your visit!
We’re approaching the most famous cliff dwellings in this region, but we also have the option to take a detour to another couple structures that are off the beaten path. The detour leads to Long House and Step House, and you can actually walk through these ancient historic sites. The detour does add about an hour of driving in total, but it’s worth it if you want to add something extra to your visit!
We’re approaching the Far View House, the first ancient structure on our tour. It’s not a cliff dwelling, but it was once one of the most densely populated parts of Mesa Verde. And it owes its success to the Far View Reservoir
This impressive structure up here is the Far View House, a precursor to the more advanced cliff dwellings. It was built around the year 1000 and became the center of one of the most densely-populated centers of Puebloan life.
Welcome to Coyote Village! Like Far View House, this ancient dwelling place once housed numerous Puebloan families. And like Far View House, the structure centers around those circular kivas.
This is a great example of a totally different type of living situation that was common in this area during the Puebloan times. Just one extended family lived here, with multiple generations sharing the same house. It shows us that not all of Puebloan society revolved around dense, multi-family structures like Far View House! Plenty of others lived in separate homes, though these were almost always located very near to the larger structures.
While it might not look much like a tower anymore, this once served as an important watchtower for this community. Here, watchers could keep an eye out for approaching enemies, herds of game, and bad weather on the horizon. The natural elevation of this site made a tower like this one super effective!
Coming up in a moment will be another unique type of building from the Ancestral Puebloans: Cedar Tree Tower. This was one of many towers that once dotted the top of this mesa. While the tower doesn’t stand at its previous height, the base has been remarkably well preserved. Like most of the towers found in Mesa Verde, this one is situated quite close to a kiva. This proximity has led some to speculate that these towers were used not only for observation, but also for ceremonial purposes. They were also useful for communicating from one settlement to another, which explains why there are so many of them!
Coming up after the bend ahead is Petroglyph Point Trail. This moderately difficult 2.5-mile hike takes about two hours, and leads you on a scenic loop through Spruce Canyon. This trail actually gets its path from an ancient Puebloan foot trail, so you’ll be walking the same route that those who lived here a thousand years ago would have taken to connect with other communities!
Park in this lot. Here, we can access the Petroglyph Point Trail and get a great look at our first proper cliff dwelling. Once you’ve parked, head to the building we just passed on our right. That’s the Chapin Mesa Archaeological Museum. Behind it, we’ll find overlooks with views of a cliff dwelling called the Spruce Tree House!
Just up ahead we’ll be able to witness one of the most stunning pieces of ancient architecture in Mesa Verde: The Cliff Palace! As its name of grandeur suggests, Cliff Palace is significantly larger than most other cliff dwellings that have been found at Mesa Verde. It’s actually the largest of all the cliff dwellings in the region.
Up next is an overlook offering views of the House of Many Windows cliff dwelling. Looking from this gorgeous vista, we’ll be able to see a low dwelling tucked into Cliff Canyon. Once the home to a large Puebloan family, the House of Many Windows has 15 rooms that have been remarkably well preserved by its sheltered position in the cliffs. Most of the “windows” aren’t actually windows at all. They’re doors!
In a moment we’ll come to an overlook with a view of the Hemenway House, one of Mesa Verde’s more precarious cliff dwellings. This house gets its name from New Yorker Mary Hemenway, who helped to fund some of the early archaeological efforts in Mesa Verde.
It gets its name from the balcony ‘railing’ that separates the steep cliff face from the rest of the alcove. Probably a good idea given the dizzying heights! About 30 people lived here and used these 38 rooms and two kivas. One interesting thing about this balcony is it actually faces northeast, which is unusual for cliff dwellings. This means the people who lived here didn’t get much sun or warmth during the winter months. So why did they build it this way?
On our right, we’re coming up on the trail that leads to the Soda Canyon Overlook. This easy 1-mile trail takes about a half hour. It winds through the juniper and pinyon trees that dot the cliff sides on the way to the magnificent views of Soda Canyon. Along the way, you’ll also come to a few different overlooks offering breathtaking views of the canyon. And at the end, you’ll get an even better view of Balcony House than the one we just left!
Coming up soon is the Pithouse, offering a glimpse at a different time period from the cliff dwellings. Here, we’ll be able to see one of the earliest permanent structures built within Mesa Verde. The pithouse structure was the dominant structure Ancestral Puebloans built and lived in around the year 600 CE.
Just ahead on our right will be Navajo Canyon View, offering spectacular views of the landscape. I highly recommend stopping there for photos!
Just beyond that viewpoint, we’ll also get to the tallest structure standing in Mesa Verde at Square Tower House. This tower stands over the rest of the buildings in this area at four stories, or 27 feet tall! Rectangular cutouts up and down the structure seem to be windows, but archaeologists can’t say for certain whether they served another purpose.
The collection of dwellings we’re passing now belong to the Mesa Top Sites. Each offers another glimpse into Ancestral Puebloan life. Coming up soon on our left will be one of the largest, the Sun Point Pueblo.
Just ahead is Sun Point View, offering a vista which features a cliff that’s absolutely filled with cliff dwellings! From this spot alone we’ll be able to see over 30 separate dwellings! Park in the turnout coming up on our right to check out the view.
Oak Tree House is one of the best examples in the park of how Ancestral Puebloans were able to adapt these alcoves to their needs. The alcove itself has two separate layers, each of which has every inch of space utilized! Up in the outer alcove where it would’ve been rather cramped to live, the Ancestral Puebloans constructed storage spaces! The inner alcove contains all sorts of structures and dwellings for habitation. While many of the dwellings are rather small with fewer than 10 rooms, some rose very tall all the way to the ceiling of the inner alcove.
The Sun Temple is a ceremonial site that may just be one of the best examples to show off the Ancestral Puebloans’ architectural prowess! Sun Temple would have been an immense labor effort to construct, and research done on the site in 2017 revealed some fascinating details about its construction. Sun Temple shows evidence the Ancestral Puebloans had knowledge of sophisticated geometric concepts, such as the pythagorean theorem. They used them to construct the Sun Temple. To keep things uniform, they even had their own standardized system of measurement! One “unit” equaled about 30 centimeters.
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Reviews
5/5 Stars – Flawless audio driving tour! A must-do in any weather. If you are visiting Mesa Verde National Park, I highly recommend this driving tour! From the second I passed the welcome sign, the audio narrative stayed perfectly in sync with my drive—no matter where I stopped, pulled over, or turned. The structure and pacing are incredible. There is so much to see throughout the park, making a guided audio tour the absolute best way to experience it if you're driving through. I happened to visit on a rainy day, but that only made the experience better! We had a mix of clear skies, rolling fog, and everything in between. It really proved that Mesa Verde is breathtaking in any season or weather condition. Don’t hesitate—definitely grab this tour!
Great. Very easy to use and the narrative was excellent. It was a cold rainy ugly day so that was the best way to see the park
I like the educational stories. It makes the experience much more meaningful. I was able to work out some technical problems today so I am hoping my next tours will go well
Had a hard time getting it.part of the problem was we were in a rental. Would have been great if it worked
The actual tour was wonderful, 5 stars. However, getting the tour up and running was only 2 stars. This was the first time I signed up a tour. It seemed like I had to jump through many hoops to get it activated. I ended up paying for it a second time at a cheaper price but still had to get an activation code and then hunt around for a password which was tucked in a lot of verbiage.
Nothing to compare it to. Loved the audio tour very informative
It is done well with lots of good information. The information starts as soon as you approach an area with no prompt from the driver.
This audio tour was perfect for my son and I as we explored the park. We went in the off-season, so there were very view visitors there and no restaurants/excursion were open. So we packed a bunch of fun snacks/dirnks and then let this tour guide us to see the major sights (we LOVED the cliff dwellings especially) and learn the basic history of the park. We highly recommend this and will use this resource again in the future!
The application requires multiple downloads I downloaded application and then the additional application and when I got to the site no ability to open, required another password.
The technology really works and is even better if you can use CarPlay to listen through your car speakers. The app knows where you are to play the corresponding snippet. Even works backwards, sort of. The dialog is at an appropriate level of depth and breeziness.
It's too bad Mesa Verde is so out of the way. Great cultural experience for all ages. Amazing how all those structures got built so many years ago
Just great. Good information and perfectly synchronized. We got out at almost every stop and appreciated the history and background
We downloaded the tour before leaving home and started the guide when we reached the park entrance. The guide worked well navigating around the park. When we stopped and left the car to visit sites, we had to select the section to resume rather than restart at the beginning, not a problem but not as smooth as it could have been. Information was entertaining and helpful, following along as we rode around the park. Overall the guide made our visit to Mesa Verde enjoyable and educational.
This app is great. Very informative and easy to use. Enjoyed with a car full of friends. Convenient way to get information while driving through the park.
Very informative ! We really enjoyed the site by site details. It stops when you take a break or hike. We will us this app again.
It’s amazing and fantastic park in Cortez - Colorado ! A lot of history and rocks to see around the park, safety and beautiful views
Amazing & informative!! We will DEFINITELY be using these tours again for any family trips !! Easy to understand & follow along. Timing was perfect, we didn’t miss a thing!
I am so glad that we did the self-guided tour. We got to see amazing views at our own pace. It is well worth the price! Highly recommend
I had trouble getting the audio tour to start but after my call to the service center, I was able to get it working. There were several instances where the audio didn't match up with what I was seeing and/or told me to turn when there was no road. That was confusing.
Great self-guided audio tour. It was so easy to follow along while visiting the Park. I even answered questions a couple of travelers were asking at a lookout point, using info I learned from the audio tour. It definitely enhanced the experience, and I would not have got near as much out of the visit without the audio guide.
Do not use this app, it didn’t work when needed. Tried numerous times with no success. The park officer also tried with no success.
Great your! We enjoyed the sites and the drive was amazing! Having the background and history of the Pueblo cliff dwellers was fantastic!
This audio tour of Mesa Verde NP was super easy to use and very informative. I really liked the way you could detour off the tour path and get right back on where you left off. The narrator had a pleasant voice and a bit of good humor.
As husband and wife doing a road trip, we didn't always have the smoothest driving communications. This app worked great at keeping track of where we were going and what we had already seen. I am definitely recommending it to friends and family.
Hearing the history of the area and the many stops that you could rewind and listen again. Better than just driving through without knowing what was ahead.
The views were incredible ...take the time to stop at the overlooks and read the helpful signage to understand the history.
Everything was very timely. If I stopped to view something it would pick up where we were and continue no matter how much time had passed.
This self guided tour was great. The information and history provided during the tour around Mesa Verde was extremely helpful and led us to see and learn so much about this historic national park and the native people and their history. Our tour was just over 3-1/2 hours.
Parts of the road were a bit challenging - lots of tight curves and almost u-turns circling the Mesa, but views where you can see for miles when not driving. And, near the end, direct view of the village built under cliffs with a partial forest growing overhead. An architectural wonder, to be sure. Rest areas were well mainland plentiful.
Amazing, great info and let us know a lot of stops! Me and my family would use it again for other tours!
Perfect for our group. Could stop when wanted. The commentary was interesting , but if needed or wanted we could pause the audio.
The tour was great. Very informative, convenient and easy. It was great to be able to go at our own pace. We were able to take the hikes we wanted without any worry and stress. We were in our motor home and we were able to make lunch and enjoy the surrounds in the middle of the tour. Absolutely a great option to see the ruins. Will definitely seek other listening tours like this in the future. Highly recommend.
Great look into ancient Native American past. I highly recommend doing the Pictograph hike if you are physically able.
Great self guides tour! Very informative and very well times with the drive. Would recommend to anyone or a family driving through the park.
We all really liked the tour guide’s voice and information he gave us as we explored the area. We also loved the suggestions and recommendations for hiking trails and view points along the way. Couple things I had an issue with: When I tried to click “more information” it didn’t work. Towards the beginning, he talked about a fire that took a lot of forest. I would have liked to hear which burned area it was as we passed it.
With the narrated self-guided tour we could take as long as we wanted at a stop or skip a stop altogether. We learned a great deal from the narration. As we progressed through the tour, however, the narration would re-start and repeat unnecessarily and sometimes miss sections altogether. This was confusing.
This tour was fire! The structures, the history and the beauty of the park were phenomenal… I appreciate the the educational aspect of the tour too
Made the day and experience great! We did not have to follow the crowd, but got a complete tour. The discussion went to just the right amount of detail and history to make the day both educational and satisfying
It was amazing! I'm sure we would have missed so much had we not used this app. Learning about the things we were seeing made the trip extraordinary! The pictures will be great reminders for years to come.
We really enjoyed the audio tour. Very well done. It was nice to hear all about the area as we were driving.
The audio tour doesn't work. No internet service in the park. The park itself is very beautiful there is some much to see and do once you at the summit
The self-guided tour was on point. We were amazed how it knew where we were and would start on its own as soon as we arrived at a new point. We highly recommend this if you like doing things at your own pace.
It was a great way to learn about the park! All the information shared was very interesting and informative. It made the ride through the park more enjoyable. I would definitely recommend it.
We loved how easy this was and convenient. Instead of just driving there, we got to listen to different facts throughout our drive. I would definitely recommend it.
The commentor on our car tour was wonderful and very informative. The dwellings were amazing, leaving us in awe with the workmanship of the native people.
This was a great tour. During the drive certain areas triggered new audio which kept everyone interested. We had kids with and the audio kept us all intrigued.
The guided tour worked well. Many interesting stories and information about the park. We all enjoyed the tour. The app was easy to use. Good value for money.
I would highly recommend this narrated audio tour. We were given relevant information for all the sights as we drove through the park. We were able to travel at our own pace.
Listening to the history and about the land. That you could stop and start the program and listen to it in the car.
Monday through Friday 9 am to 7 pm EST
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