Travel Tips

Travel Tip: Museum Apps

Locations in this article:  Los Angeles, CA

There’s getting lost in a museum, and then there’s getting LOST. The good news is, there’s now technology to help you map your way through even the world’s largest museums.

Recently, the Smithsonian Institution put out an app that maps each and every room covering 2.7 million square feet. It’s only available on Androids, but if you can access it, there’s almost more information you can imagine. We’re talking room-by-room mapping of the National Air and Space Museum, National Portrait Gallery, and much more. The best part is you can track your own location inside the museums with Google Maps.

The American Museum of Natural History has an app that triangulates your position inside the museum, and gives you turn-by-turn directions. But it’s not just about finding your location. It’s also got tours and a database of digital exhibits. Don’t have an iPad or iPhone? That’s OK, the museum has more than 300 devices you can borrow for free.

The J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles has a cool app with Google’s Goggle app—yes, you heard that right. You can photograph a painting and it will pull up everything you need to know, along with audio commentary from artists and curators.

For more information, visit the Museum archives.

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