About Free Audio Tours

Free Audio Tours is a small, independent project: free, self-guided, GPS-triggered audio tours that run right in your browser. No account to create, no app to install, and every tour keeps working after you lose signal — which matters, because the best moments to use one are often the ones with the worst reception.

Why it's free

The point is to offer an honest, free service first. There's no paywall and no account wall between you and a tour. The site is built and kept running by one person, funded by two things that only ever involve people who chose to be involved: affiliate links to bookable tours and experiences related to what you're already looking at, and an optional, unobtrusive donation link at the end of a tour. Nothing on the live tour screen is an ad, and nothing ever will be.

Who's behind it

Free Audio Tours is written, narrated, and maintained by one person who likes both software and cities. The first tour — a GPS-guided ride along the Chicago River — grew out of narration originally written for a family trip and rebuilt from scratch for a public audience.

How a tour works

Each tour's waypoints are tied to real GPS coordinates. As you travel past one, its narration and photo appear automatically — on foot, by bike, or from the water. Everything a tour needs (audio, images, map tiles) is downloaded and cached the first time you open it, so it keeps working even if you go offline mid-tour.

Questions or feedback

Found something wrong, or have a tour idea? See the image credits for the current tour, or read the privacy policy for how the site handles data.