AUDIO TOURS · AROUND THE WORLD
Press play. See the city your way.
The Colosseum in Rome, the Louvre in Paris, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Real reviews of the self-guided audio tours and skip-the-line guides worth booking, for travellers who would rather explore at their own pace than follow a flag.
Worth the trip for the walk alone
Three cities made for a voice in your ear.
Some places you rush through on a group tour. Rome, Paris and Istanbul you take slowly, with the history narrated as you go: the ancient arena, the great museum, the old city of two empires. These are the cities travellers explore on audio and never forget.
Italy
Rome
No city rewards a voice in your ear like Rome. The Colosseum, the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill come alive when the narration tells you who stood where and what the ruins once were, and a skip-the-line ticket walks you past the queue straight into the arena. Across the river the Vatican and St. Peter's do the same. A whole ancient empire, self-guided, on your own clock.
- 1 Rome: Colosseum & Forum with Audio Guide App -Optional Arena
- 2 Rome: City Sightseeing Hop-on Hop-off Bus with Audioguide
- 3 Rome: St. Peter’s Basilica & Dome Entry Ticket & Audio Tour
France
Paris
Paris is a city of museums and monuments that reward knowing what you are looking at. An audio guide turns the Louvre from a marathon into a route, narrates the rooms of the Musee d'Orsay, and walks you through Notre-Dame and the Left Bank with the history layered in. You linger where you like and move on when you are ready.
- 1 Paris: Louvre Museum Hosted Entry and Mona Lisa Audioguide
- 2 Paris: Orsay Museum Entry Ticket and Digital Audio Guide App
- 3 From Paris: Giverny Day Trip with Audio Guide or Live Guide
Turkey
Istanbul
Istanbul packs a thousand years of Byzantine and Ottoman history into a few walkable square kilometres, and a self-guided audio tour is the way to read it. Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Basilica Cistern and the labyrinth of the Grand Bazaar each open up with a narrator who knows the stories, while you keep your own pace through the old city.
- 1 Istanbul: Daytime or Sunset Sightseeing Cruise & Audio Guide
- 2 Istanbul: Basilica Cistern Fast-Track Entry and Audio Guide
- 3 Istanbul: Topkapi Palace & Harem Museum Ticket & Audio Guide
If you only book one
The audio tour more travellers rave about than any other.
Out of every self-guided tour on the site, this is the one that sends people home telling everyone they know to book it.
The crowd-pleasers
The Most Popular Audio Tours Right Now
The Colosseum in Rome, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the canals of Amsterdam, Pompeii frozen in time. The skip-the-line tickets and narrated walks travellers are happiest they booked.
Start with a city
The best audio tours, city by city.
Rome for the ancient ruins, Paris for the great museums, Istanbul for the old city. Pick the city you are headed to and we will show you the self-guided tours worth booking there.
Where history is loudest
Three corners of the world worth a long listen.
Start with the kind of history you came for. Each of these is a region the site covers deeply, and a very different story waiting in your ear at the end of it.
Barcelona
Gaudi makes sense with the story.
The Sagrada Familia, Casa Batllo and La Pedrera reward knowing what you are looking at, and the queues are brutal without a skip-the-line ticket. An audio guide walks you through Gaudi’s logic and the lanes of the Gothic Quarter at your own pace, so you linger at the stained glass instead of shuffling past it.
See the best Barcelona audio tours →Rome
Walk the Forum with a guide who knows it.
The Colosseum, the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill are a field of magnificent rubble until someone tells you what you are seeing. A skip-the-line ticket and an audio guide put the gladiators back in the arena, rebuild the temples along the Via Sacra, and let you stand in the Pantheon while the narration explains the dome above your head.
See the best Rome audio tours →Athens
Climb to the Parthenon with the whole story.
The Acropolis rewards the climb, but the marble keeps its secrets unless someone tells them. A self-guided audio tour walks you up past the Theatre of Dionysus to the Parthenon and the Erechtheion, naming the gods, the wars and the architects, then sends you down to the Ancient Agora and the new museum with the thread still running.
See the best Athens audio tours →Prague on foot
Across the Charles Bridge to the castle.
Prague is a storybook you can walk through, from the Astronomical Clock and the Old Town Square across the statue-lined Charles Bridge up to the largest castle complex in the world. A self-guided audio tour fills in the saints, the kings and the legends as you climb, and a skip-the-line castle ticket gets you inside without the wait.
- 1 Prague: Astronomical Clock Tower Entry Ticket & Audio Guide
- 2 Prague: Prague Castle Skip-the-Line Ticket with Audioguide
- 3 Prague: National Museum Ticket & Online Audioguide City Tour
At your own pace
How much of the city do you want to take on?
One great monument in Rome. A whole museum in Paris. A full old town across two continents in Istanbul. Pick how far you want to wander with a guide in your ear and the queue behind you.
One great landmark
Rome, the Colosseum at your pace.Skip the line, put in your earbuds and walk the arena, the Forum and Palatine Hill while the audio fills in who fought, who watched and what once stood where. One monument, all the story, no tour group to keep up with.
A whole museum
Paris, the Louvre without the panic.The Louvre is overwhelming on your own. An audio guide routes you straight to the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the rooms worth your morning, narrating each as you stand in front of it, then leaves you free to wander the rest.
The whole old town
Istanbul, two continents on foot.Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Basilica Cistern, the Grand Bazaar, all in one self-guided day. The narration carries you across a thousand years and two empires while you set the pace and stop for tea whenever you like.
Amsterdam
The canals tell the whole story.
Amsterdam reads best from the water and on foot, ring by ring of seventeenth-century canals, gabled merchant houses and the museums of the Museumplein. A canal cruise with onboard audio narrates the Golden Age as you glide under the bridges, and a self-guided walk carries the history of the Jordaan and the Anne Frank House at whatever pace you keep.
See all 16 Amsterdam audio tours →By city
Pick a city to explore at your own pace.
Rome for the ancient ruins. Paris for the great museums. Florence for the Renaissance. Istanbul for the old city. London for the landmarks. Barcelona for Gaudi.
More cities
More cities worth a slow weekend.
Venice for the palazzi, Prague for the castle, Amsterdam for the canals, New York for the skyline. The rest of the map, ready when you are.
Three cities, three perfect days
Pick a city, build the day around the story.
A Renaissance morning in Florence, a St Mark’s afternoon in Venice, a castle evening in Prague. Three cities, three very different days with a guide in your ear.
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