Lookabout: Point Your Camera at the World, and It Answers

Pull into Fort Pulaski and your phone already has
a plan: Visitor Center · 350 ft — follow the dots.
A trail of them, laid right across the lawn, walks you to the front door.
That’s Lookabout: a travel companion that knows where
you are, notices where you’re pointing, and answers the oldest question
of every trip — what am I looking at?

iPhone screenshot of Lookabout's AR walking guide at Fort Pulaski: a floating North Pier · 300 ft label over a shell path curving through palms toward the water, with a banner reading 300 ft to go, follow the dots. — North Pier · 300 ft — the label hangs where
the shell path bends toward the sea.

The name comes from the Australian walkabout — but this one
you take with your eyes. There is no map to squint at, no list to scroll. You
simply look at something, and Lookabout works out which fort, square, monument,
or lighthouse holds your gaze — using where you stand, the direction
you’re facing, and a little geometry — then tells you its story.

Point at it. It knows.

Lookabout draws on sources that actually know their subject: the National
Park Service’s own descriptions when you’re in a park, Wikipedia
when the world has written an article, and Apple Maps for everything with a
name. On top of that, Apple’s on-device intelligence writes you a short,
friendly introduction — grounded in those real sources, never invented
— and every description says where it came from.

iPhone screenshot of Lookabout's Nearby tab at Fort Pulaski, listing parking lots, the North Pier Trail, the monument cemetery, and the Fopu Visitor Center 350 feet away. — Arriving at Fort Pulaski, the Nearby tab already knows the
neighborhood — parking, trails, memorials, and the visitor center,
350 feet away.

That opening move is the same at any national park:
Lookabout’s first suggestion is always the visitor center. At Fort
Pulaski, the dots happen to lead past the John Wesley memorial and the
emancipation markers on their way to the door. And regular readers have
already met the man inside: Ranger Max, who checks you in at
SKOGARK’s fictional Fort Pulaski, works at the real one.

It reads to you

Tap Listen, lower the phone, and Lookabout becomes an audio tour
— the history of the place you’re standing in, read aloud while you
look at the real thing instead of a screen. Turn on auto-narration and every
landmark you identify introduces itself, like a patient guide who never minds
being asked twice.

Walk there

iPhone screenshot of Lookabout's AR walking guide on a path at Fort Pulaski: teal breadcrumb dots on the grass, a floating Fopu Visitor Center label, and a banner reading 300 ft to go, follow the dots. — Follow the dots — the trail Lookabout lays across the lawn
to the visitor center. (“Fopu” is the National Park
Service’s four-letter code for Fort Pulaski —
the app speaks fluent ranger.)

See a label floating in the distance and want a closer look? One tap starts
walking guidance: a trail of dots on the ground, a floating name over the
destination, and a gentle voice for the moments that matter —
“guiding you to the North Pier,” and, when you arrive,
“you’ve arrived.” If you wander off the wrong way, it says
that too, kindly. And it guides you to the place itself — the pier at the
end of the trail, not the sign at the start of it. (That distinction was
learned the honest way, on foot.)

iPhone screenshot of Lookabout's AR walking guide arriving at Fort Pulaski's North Pier: a wide low-tide beach with oyster-shell pier ruins in the sand, a small floating North Pier label in the distance, and a banner reading 80 ft to go, follow the dots. — Eighty feet to go — low tide, the old pier’s
oyster-shell bones, and the label out where the pier actually is.

It knows where “here” is

iPhone screenshot of Lookabout aimed at the Johnson Square ground plaque set in brick pavers, with an identify card reading “Johnson Square — You’re here” and a More Information button. — Standing on the plaque in Johnson Square — the app answers
the way a local would.

Savannah’s squares taught Lookabout some manners. Stand anywhere inside
one — even reading the bronze plaque set into the bricks — and it
says You’re here: Johnson Square, the way a Savannahian
would say it. Aim at the monument in the middle and it tells you about
that instead. Places first, details on request — the same way
people actually talk about where they are.

Built on Savannah boots

The white “sav” letter sculpture on Hutchinson Island’s riverfront lawn, the red-and-white Georgia Queen riverboat passing on the Savannah River behind it. — Field-testing country: Hutchinson Island’s riverfront, the
Georgia Queen passing behind the SaV sign.

Lookabout wasn’t designed in an office. It was walked into shape
— between summer thunderstorms — at Fort Pulaski National Monument,
along River Street, and through the squares, by someone who lives here. That
shows up in small, honest ways: arriving at a national park, it suggests
starting at the Visitor Center, because that’s genuinely the right first
move. Indoors, where steel and glass can bend a compass, it tells you plainly
that directions work best outside.

Quiet by design

Everything personal happens on your device. The descriptions are written by
on-device intelligence; your location is used to find landmarks near you and
shared with no one; there is no account to create and nothing that follows you
home. Lookabout uses free, public knowledge — the Park Service,
Wikipedia, the map — and leaves the rest of your trip alone.

The fictional fort and the real one

Readers of this blog have already visited Fort Pulaski once — in
SKOGARK, where Ranger Max
checks you in at the visitor center and the terreplein waits across the
drawbridge. Lookabout is the other half of that idea: SKOGARK lets you imagine
the place from anywhere; Lookabout stands beside you when you finally go. Same
fort. Same drawbridge. One of them has weather.

Now on the App Store

Lookabout is live on the App Store for iPhone —
get it here.
And if you have a favorite place it ought to know about — write me:
gary.skoglind@gmail.com.

Go outside, look about. The world is better labeled than you think.

Related: SKOGARK: Tiny Text Adventures, Beautifully Rebuilt — tiny illustrated text adventures that wander some of the same ground.