[09:30 — somewhere past Templenoe, engine running] — and see that bridge? Everyone drives over it, nobody stops. There's a story about that bridge. Hang on, I'll tell you as we pass.

Half of Irish tourism
arrives in four months.
Most of it stops at the
same few places.

Kerry has 15,000 places.

CanGo is a free audio companion for the other 99%: stories that play as you drive or walk, so the county can tell you about itself.

Download CanGo How it works Free · iPhone & Android · Works offline
Legend
A place with a story
Worth the detour
(site of): gone, but not silent
V 855 705 · Templenoe [11:14]

You know the friend who
picks you up at the airport?

The one who knows which beach is empty on a Saturday, which chipper is worth the queue, and the story about the bridge everyone else drives over.

That friend, in your pocket. Pick a road and go. The stories find you.

[11:20]

Pick a road

Driving and walking tours across three peninsulas, made stop by stop. Honest times, real distances.

[11:25]

Let it talk

Stories play as you reach each place. Your eyes stay on the road; your phone stays in your pocket.

[whenever]

Wander off

Leave the route whenever something looks interesting. That's rather the point. We'll still let you know when you're passing something worth hearing, and with 15,000 places in Kerry, that's never far.

[12:30 — traffic ahead][coach engines, idling. forty phones, one photograph.] ▶  The White House · 1:21
Field note · The queue

The queue is not
the county.

Most visitors see the same handful of places, photographed from the same spot, at the same hour. A third now plan their trips with AI, and the guides are all starting to sound the same.

The famous places are famous for good reason, and CanGo takes you to them. But Kerry runs 15,000 places deep. The State’s record of historic sites alone holds 13,762 of them, before you count a single beach, summit, waterfall or pub. The queue is standing at a handful.

We're for the road between them, too: the one with no coach parking, a name older than the English language, and someone who still remembers why it matters.

The homework [13:20]

Where the stories
come from.

Every CanGo story starts with someone finding out properly: reading what was written down and what people remembered, and keeping the detail exact. If the recess is 1.35 metres by 1.8, that's what we say. The detail is the proof.

A place doesn't need a story to go in: a view, a swim, or the best 99 in Kerry is reason enough. Plenty have the view and the story too. And when there is one, we tell the history and the legends both, and we'll always tell you which is which.

And we're building towards a simple promise: one day, every story in CanGo will carry the name of a local who checked it and said yes, that's right.

[14:37 — the app, cutting in as you pass]

Deora Dé — God's tears

The fuchsia flooding these ditches isn't native at all, but it settled in so well the Irish gave it a name of its own: Deora Dé, the tears of God.

▶  Listen · 0:09 [folklore — and we say so]
[15:03 — the app, cutting in as you pass]

The butter road

This track once carried firkins of salted butter over the hills toward Cork — weeks of walking behind a donkey, to the biggest butter market in the world.

▶  Listen · 0:09 [history — we made sure]
The map's saddest words [15:46 — the road empties]
▶  The Fair Green · 0:56
1,700 of Kerry's places can't be visited anymore.

The old maps have two words for a place that's gone: (site of). The school that closed. The pier the sea took. The village that emptied in a single generation.

And older things still: the field where a battle is said to have turned, the rock a saint is supposed to have cursed, the names that remember people no record kept.

[silence]

We tell you about them anyway, as you pass where they were. Travel that keeps places alive, including the ones that are only alive in the telling.

The stone circle, Killowen (site of)— known only from a sketch
The standing stone, Mucksna (site of)— gone after 1895
The stone row, Killowen (site of)— lost to Kenmare's own growth
The enclosure, Kilkeana (site of)— gone without trace
The lost house, Killowen (site of)— cleared in living memory
Cromwell's Fort (site of)— a name without a builder
[16:30 — pulled in for coffee][a café door. steam. two mugs put down on wood.]
Worth the detour

150 places to eat, drink and stop.
Someone from CanGo has sat
in every one of them.

Before a café or a pub or a pier-side shed goes in the app, one of us has been through the door, had the coffee or the chowder, and decided you'd want to know about it. You'll spot our sign in windows around the three peninsulas.

And a rule we don't break: money never buys the map. No business can pay to appear, and payment is never a ranking signal.

The lie of the land · three peninsulas[17:15]

Beara, Iveragh, Dingle.

More than 9,000 places between them, from strands to standing stones. We're telling their stories, road by road.

PeninsulaOn the recordField note
Beara 2,052 Remote, rugged, and mostly left alone. Mountain passes, coloured villages, and no signal in places, which is fine, because CanGo works without it.
Iveragh 4,365 Home of the Ring of Kerry: 179 kilometres of coast, Ireland's highest mountains, and most of its places beyond the famous route.
Dingle 2,290 Mountains, cliffs, ancient sites and living culture. Dingle rewards the quieter road.

The count behind the 15,000: 13,762 monuments on Ireland's national record, 90 mapped beaches, 17 waterfalls, and the summits, viewpoints, islands, pubs and walks on top.

How it works[17:45 — the practical bit]

Nothing to set up.
Nowhere to sign in.

Download it, pick a tour, go.

That's the whole thing. No account, no questionnaire. The first story plays when you reach the first stop.

Works where there's no signal.

Tours download as you choose them and play fully offline — including the far side of Beara.

Built to be listened to, not looked at.

Stories play as audio while your eyes stay on the road — like a podcast that knows where you are.

It can point things out as you pass.

Off the route, no tour running at all, if you want. It's a switch, always visible, off until you turn it on. Silence is always one tap away.

How is CanGo different from Google Maps?

Maps gets you from A to B. CanGo is about what's worth stopping for along the way, and the stories behind it.

Do I have to follow a set route?

No. Follow a tour, leave it, come back to it, or just drive with the switch on and let places speak as you pass.

Is it safe to use while driving?

Yes. It's audio, like the radio, except it knows where you are. Pick your tour before you set off and leave the phone alone.

What do you do with my location?

One thing: finding what's near you so the right story can play. It's used on your device, not sold, not shared, and never used to build a profile of you. You can switch it off any time.

Will it build a trip around what I'm into?

That's where this is going: tell it your interests and your time, and it shapes the day. It's not in the app yet, and we won't pretend otherwise. What's there now: real tours that work with no signal and ask you nothing.

[18:30 — one last thing]

Take the passenger seat.

Hear when new places and stories go in, and get a say in where we go next. A note when there’s news, and quiet the rest of the time.