City Guides by National Geographic is a project that almost never came to fruition. Due to an already saturated travel app market, the Nat Geo team was finding it difficult to gain the momentum necessary for creating yet another app for leisure travelers. Eventually, Nat Geo opted to outsource, and we’re certainly glad they did. Based on a series of best-selling guidebooks from Nat Geo’s Traveler group, the app aimed to provide travelers with definitive guides to some of the most-visited cities in the world: London, New York, Paris, and Rome. After we helped launch the National Parks app and both teams saw it smash all internal projections for downloads and in-app purchases, it gave the Nat Geo team the confidence to move forward with City Guides.

The general feeling amongst digital product managers at Nat Geo became, “if anyone can do it, Rally can." We happily replied, “Game on." Following the mantra of “the interface is the product,” we were able to partner once again with Nat Geo to elevate their brand reputation in the travel space, highlight their iconic photography, and package up their one-of-a-kind insider’s knowledge, into one useful, beautiful product. We whipped up some technical wizardry in order to highlight the recommended walks and itineraries. In turn, this helped push our mapping and geospatial chops to new territories.