FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: SARAH TOWLE


January 26, 2012

 

 

Future of Educational Travel:

Time Traveler Tours StoryApps    Uncover History's Secret World of Murderers, Gravediggers and     Celebrity Photographers

Family travelers and school groups tired of traditional guidebooks now have a new way to explore the world’s greatest cities with their smartphone, guided by the murderers, gravediggers and celebrity photographers of Time Traveler Tours.

Sarah Towle's Time Traveler Tours represent a breakthrough in travel writing. Sarah combines the traditional power of narrative story telling with the latest in mobile technology to create a smartphone app that brings the world's most beloved destinations to life. She calls her product -- dedicated to youth and the young at heart -- the interactive StoryApp iTinerary.

The first StoryApp iTinerary, Beware Madame la Guillotine, A Revolutionary Tour of Paris , launched in July 2011 in English for iPhone and iPod Touch with iPad compatibility. It remained in the US App Store's New & Noteworthy for nearly two weeks and has been consistently present in the US What's Hot Top 120 apps in the travel category ever since. In December 2011, it earned two Top 10 distinctions: Top 10 2011 App by School Library Journal and Top 10 Tried & True Classroom Apps by Teachers With Apps. Reviews have been outstanding:

  • In Paris with a Murderess, School Library Journal, Touch & Go, The Guide to the Best Apps for Children and Teens, Aug 15, 2011

Now, the app is available in an updated bilingual French-English version with a French title added:
  Gare à la guillotine ! Une visite revolutionaire de Paris. It is certain to be a hit with French and English language learners and history buffs the world over!

Charlotte Corday. Original steel engraving drawn by A. Lacauchie, engraved by Roze, 1849. Digital image courtesy of www.antique-prints.de.Narrated by the young murderess Charlotte Corday in the moments before she is to have her head lopped off at the guillotine, Beware Mme la Guillotine / Gare à la guillotine ! takes you on Charlotte's personal journey into the sights and sounds of Paris at the time of the French Revolution. As she explains how and why she stabbed radical propagandist Jean-Paul Marat, Charlotte leads you through her Paris, from the Palais Royal on the Right Bank to La Conciergerie on the Ile de la Cité.

Time Traveler Tours StoryApp iTineraries go beyond other travel apps to provide content created expressly for mobile device. By contrast, the apps put out by the major travel publishers are often reconstitutions of their paper and ink destination guides.

Each StoryApp iTinerary provides a daylong interactive tour, told through the point of view of a historical figure whose actions helped shape their times. Along with the yarn, the app gives travelers everything from puzzles, scavenger hunts and brain-teasers to practical information such as maps, directions, helpful hints and a discounted restaurant recommendation along the way.

Sarah, a US expatriate, is a lifelong teacher and traveler who moved to Paris in 2004 and, frustrated at a lack of exciting travel opportunities for older kids, began writing story-based historical itineraries for her then-preteen daughter. The lightbulb moment came when she held an iPhone for the first time. Since then, she has been writing, researching and building her one-person business from the ground up.

Also in the pipeline from Time Traveler Tours are two London itineraries (in development) and three more tours of Paris:

  • Day of the Dead, in which fictional gravedigger Jean-Philippe Toulier takes you to the Catacombs and the Montparnasse cemetery during the time of Emperor Napoleon;
  • Long Live the King's Garden, a visit to the gardens of the ancien régime’s Chateau de Versailles enlivened by the adventures of France's true-life Indiana Jones; and
  • In Focus, the story of Nadar, the world's first portrait photographer, and the late 19th century boom that made Paris the envy of the world.

Time Traveler Tours interactive StoryApp iTineraries are ideal for the ever-increasing numbers of young people traveling with their school groups and families.

They also provide a fun complement to related high school and home school curricula. Indeed, Beware Mme la Guillotine is already a hit with teachers and librarians, whether or not they are planning a trip to Paris.

Extensively researched and great fun, these app tours are the essential travel companion for anyone with a smartphone, sturdy walking shoes and a love of discovery.

 

Want to know more?

Contact: Sarah Towle, Founder & Creative Director, Time Traveler Tours

Susan Raab, President, Raab Associates

Click here to find out more: Time Traveler Tours in the Media.

Click here for images from Time Traveler Tours.

 

Facebook: Time Traveler Tours

LinkedIn: Sarah Towle

Twitter: @ParisAppTours

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