News · October 12, 2026
How Whistlestop handles music, podcasts, maps, and calls
Whistlestop lowers music, pauses podcasts and audiobooks, gives way to navigation, and goes quiet for phone calls. Here is why each works that way.
Carson Coots
Writing
The Journal
Whistlestop narrates what you pass as you drive. These pages are the longer version: the stories behind the places, what we have learned about planning a drive worth taking, and the occasional note about what we are building.
News · October 12, 2026
The Texas Revolution as a narrated map tour
A 21-stop narrated map tour of the Texas Revolution, from Béxar in 1821 to the treaties of Velasco in 1836. It runs about 20 minutes in any browser.
Carson Coots
News · September 8, 2026
History is everywhere: why we built an audio tour guide app
Audio guides have lived in museums and national parks for seventy years. We built an audio tour guide app for the roads in between, where most of the history actually is.
Carson Coots
News · September 7, 2026
The decisions behind how Whistlestop works
Whistlestop opens to a single button. Here is the reasoning behind that and the other decisions about how the app behaves in version 1.
Carson Coots
News · August 26, 2026
Whistlestop 1.0 is live. Go for a drive.
Whistlestop for iPhone is now on the App Store. We spent a long time packing it with everything we pictured in a good little road trip companion. Now it is time to take it on the road.
Carson Coots
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop tells you these stories automatically as you pass them. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
