Self-guided audio tours
A self-guided audio tour app that starts where you stand
Xploreo is an iPhone app for self-guided audio walking tours in Barcelona, Rome and Berlin. It builds a walking loop that starts and finishes where you stand, routes it past the most notable places nearby, and plays a short story as you come within about 50 metres of each stop. The screen can stay locked and the phone in your pocket.
The idea
What a self-guided audio tour is
A self-guided audio tour is a walk you take on your own time, with a narrator in your headphones instead of a guide in front of you. A GPS audio tour app adds what a printed guide cannot: it knows where you are, so the right story plays at the right corner without you looking anything up.
Xploreo goes one step further and plans the walk itself. You do not need to know the city, find a starting point or follow a route someone drew years ago. You say how long you have, and the walk starts from where you are.
Step by step
How a walk works
Four steps, and only the first two need the screen. The rest of the time the phone is in your pocket and your eyes are on the street. The full picture is on how it works.
Choose how long you want to walk
Xploreo builds a loop from your position, past the most notable places nearby, and back to where you started.Or pick a destination
Tap a place on the map and the app walks you there instead, with stops on the way.Follow the line
The route is drawn on the map with numbered stops. Add, drop or reorder them before you set off.Put the phone away
Within about 50 metres of each stop its story starts by itself, and keeps playing with the screen locked.
Automatic playback
Stories that start as you arrive
When you come within about 50 metres of the next stop, its story starts in your headphones. The radius is wide on purpose: in narrow old streets a phone's position can be off by tens of metres, and a story that waits until you are on the doorstep would start late. How that works is explained in how GPS audio guides know when to play.
Audio keeps playing with the screen locked, with play and pause on the lock screen like any other audio app. You can pause, skip, or read a story as text whenever you like.
Better stops
Why the loop lands on the best places
Every place on the map carries a grade from S to E, by how significant it is. Loops favour the higher grades, so even a short walk passes places worth stopping for rather than simply the nearest ones. In Barcelona that means Gaudí's houses or the Gothic cathedral; in Rome, the Pantheon before a minor fountain.
Any time
A walking tour near you, whenever you start
Because the loop starts where you stand, there is no meeting point and no start time. Open the app at a hotel door, a café table or a metro exit anywhere in Barcelona, Rome or Berlin, and the walk begins there. Go at eight in the morning or after dinner, and stop when you have had enough.
There is no account to create and nothing to sign up for. Your walks are saved on your phone: the line you walked, the stops you reached and the stories you heard.
Choosing
Self-guided audio walk or a guided group tour?
Neither is better in general; they suit different days. Here is how they differ in practice.
| Aspect | Guided group tour | Self-guided with Xploreo |
|---|---|---|
| When it starts | At a set time | Whenever you open the app |
| Where it starts | At a meeting point | Where you stand |
| Pace | The group's | Yours; pause any story |
| Questions | Ask the guide anything | Nobody to ask |
| Company | A guide and a group | On your own, or with up to five friends |
| Language | The language of the tour | Each person's own app language |
A live guide is the better choice when you want to ask questions, enjoy a person's company and humour, want someone else to handle the timing and the way, or plan to go inside a museum with a guide who knows it.
Self-guided suits you when your day has no fixed shape, when you want to walk at your own pace and stop for coffee without holding anyone up, or when your group speaks more than one language. Plenty of people do both on one trip: a guided tour on the first morning, then their own walks for the rest of the stay.
With friends
Bring up to five friends
Self-guided does not have to mean alone. Show a QR code or send a link, and up to five friends with the app join your walk for 24 hours. You lead; when a story starts for you, it starts for each of them at the same moment, in their own language. Read more about walking together.
Cities
Where you can walk
- Barcelona: Gaudí, the Gothic Quarter and the sea. Start with the Gothic Quarter walking route.
- Rome: the centro storico, the ancient city and Trastevere. Try Rome after sunset.
- Berlin: Mitte, the traces of the Wall and the Stolpersteine underfoot.
FAQ
Self-guided tours
Does the audio play automatically?
Yes. On a route, each stop's story starts when you come within about 50 metres. There is nothing to tap and no screen to watch.
Does it keep playing with the screen locked?
Yes. Stories keep playing with the screen locked and the phone in your pocket, with play and pause on the lock screen.
Do I need to register?
No. There is no account and nothing to sign up for. Your walks are saved on your phone.
Where does a walk start?
Where you stand. Xploreo builds a loop that starts and finishes at your position, or a walk to a place you pick on the map, with stops on the way.
Which cities can I walk?
Barcelona, Rome and Berlin.
What do I need?
An iPhone with iOS 17 or later, and headphones.
Your city walk starts where you stand.
Put your headphones in, pick a city, start walking.
