This summer, explore beyond the usual events. Discover the history and stories in your own backyard. Many cities are now launching tours of historic cooridors and cultural areas to help engage its residents and visitors, to make spaces meaningful and locations remembered for more than the sunset or the good shopping. Next Exit History has partnered with the Downtown Missoula Partnership and the Hidden Kalamazoo group to provide additional content for locations no longer accessible and to provide a glimpse into the past.

Have tours you want to transfer to a digital platform? Looking for ways to engage guests at your site or in your historic corridors? Looking to add ADA compliance to your facilities? Looking to enhance your static signs and exhibits? Want to see how Next Exit History can work for you? Now you can!

Imagine sitting at a lunch counter where other diners scowl at you and mutter obscenities under their breath. Or being refused a convenient (or clean) restroom, water fountain or seat on the public bus. Or not having access to the same public education as others, because of the way you look.

These were the daily struggles and injustices African Americans faced, and fiercely fought during the volatile 1950’s and 1960’s. For the first time ever, we can finally walk in their shoes through the educational and inspirational journey the U.S. Civil Rights Trail offers.

We have worked with our Partners at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History and Culture to curate the experience of A World-Wide Story in the Next Exit History App. This project takes items from their collection, some on display and some in storage, and puts them back on the map. Showcasing the stories that connect places and people- a shared history showcased in map form. Connecting stories of hardship and hard work, exclusion and inclusion, slavery and freedom, famous figures and common men and women. These stories come from all over the globe and yet belong to each person too.

Next Exit History is hoping to become part of the bridge closing the gap between Visitor and Local Economies. We believe that every community has a story that should be shared. That community and culture traits should be preserved and celebrated. As individuals, we yearn for connection. Connection to new places and new people but also to shared beliefs and histories. And all of these things should be accessible by all.

Back in June, I wrote about the Pend Oreille Basin Heritage Project and the opportunities for using mobile technology to satisfy requirements of regulatory compliance or to serve as creative mitigation. A component of that work was collaborating with the Kalispel Indian Tribe in northeast Washington to both interpret their history and to do so in a way that recognizes the cultural significance of places and the ongoing preservation of the Salish language. This has much broader application than just including tribes as stakeholders in projects and throwing in a few Native American sites to broaden the sweep of historical interpretation: it can aid in the preservation of language and, in a dynamic way, provide tribal communities a way to both tell their stories through their own voices (literally) and promote heritage tourism in the process.