When I last visited London, I decided to take a guided tour. Strolling along the banks of the Thames, I came across the famous London Plane Trees. It was September, and they were stunning at that time of year: their bark was peeling off to reveal mottled, grey-green trunks. took out my camera. The tour guide smiled obsequiously: “Come along, plenty to see”. I put my camera away and was herded over to a curio shop. Plane Trees just don’t pay the same commission as mini-Big-Bens. A great tour guide is irreplaceable, but sometimes you just need to stop and look at the trees. You need to get off the beaten track, and explore the hidden, lesser-known side of a city. Sometimes, you need a tour guide with a pause button. Building a walking tour app that can fill the shoes of a guide is no mean feat. It needs to tell everybody the right stories at the right time and place, even if they move at different speeds. It needs to give clear directions: to tell you to turn a corner when you arrive at the corner, or cross a bridge or keep walking.

It needs to tell you when you’re lost. This is all before you even start to worry about the story being told of course, and whether it will help to make your London experience something special and memorable. Sadly, many app developers spend too much time worrying about the technical details, often at the cost of engaging and original content. Luckily for you, there are a number of apps getting it right. That’s why we’ve put together this list of London walking tour apps. Each one has approached walking tours a little differently, to shed some light on The Big Smoke’s stories. This is my favourite on the list. The app is simple: the interface is a map scattered with story-bubbles. It detects where you are and plays a story relevant to your location. If you wander off, that story fades away, and a new one kicks in when you reach the next spot. If you retrace your steps, the previous story will pick up where it left off. It’s a great feature, but it does make for a lot of aimless loitering if you want to hear the whole story.

This isn’t for kids, either; you’ll hear tales of hedonism and drama, and they don’t shy away from the sleazier stories.nike shoes on sale ebay The app was created by the National Trust and narrated by Barry Cryer. mens walking shoes leatherAll in all, Soho Stories is a beautifully crafted guide to one of London’s quirkiest neighbourhoods. nike outlet shoes mensIt’s a fascinating glimpse into the area’s history, complete with immersive sound design and interviews with locals.best shoes for walking on hard floors Sadly, Android users will have to sit this one out for now, but you can get it free on iOS.running shoes melbourne

London’s famous blue plaques have had pride of place on London’s buildings for over 150 years. best running shoes for basketballNow you can explore them with the official walking tour app by English Heritage. It’s your comprehensive guide to London’s 900+ blue plaques. It uses your location to guide you to the buildings that were significant to people from London’s past, from Dickens to Hendrix. You can search for the ones that interest you, or hit the ‘blue plaques near me’ button for those in your immediate surroundings. And here’s why it made the list: there’s also a GPS-guided walk. It unlocks the stories of Soho’s former residents, with the tacit promise of more themed walks to come. The interface is simple, again: it’s a map with directions below. Make sure you keep your wits about you though, because it will involve a fair amount of walking around with your phone in your hand.

Get it free on iOS and Android. This app will send you scuttling across 5 miles of London’s busy streets, taking in a wonderful cross section of the Fab Four’s time in London. It’s more of a map of locations than a walking tour, but they have plotted a route for those devoted souls keen on stringing the 18 spots together into a 5 mile walk. Unfortunately, the app was last updated in 2010, so it’s a little rusty. All the info is presented as a wall of text on your phone, so instead of listening to commentary while you walk, you’ll be face-down with your eyes on a screen. It’s also quite a slog, with a huge distance between the sites. Often, your only reward for your perilous hike is a nondescript private house, with occupants rolling their eyes at yet another tourist. There are pictures of each place, so you could comfortably do the tour from your living room – but that kind of ruins the whole idea, doesn’t it? Get it for £0.79 on iOS. Android users will have to find their own way to Abbey Road.

If it’s starting to feel like we’re leaning toward iOS apps here, it’s not for lack of trying. Android is much harder to build for, so many apps stick to iPhone. Nonetheless, this app is too cool to leave off the list. Street Art London does exactly what you’d think: it’ll directs you to the coolest murals, scribbles and full-scale artworks around the city. There isn’t a particular route to follow. You pull up the map and use it to navigate to pins, which indicate the location of the artwork. Of course, street art appears and gets painted over, or washed off, overnight. Thankfully, the app promises up-to-date content. It’ll also tell you all about the artists, but it’s entirely text based, so prepare for a bit of reading. And yes, Banksy’s work is on the app too. Get it free on iOS. Charles Dickens has certainly left his mark on London, and Walking with Dickens looks like handfuls of literary fun. The app features just one walking tour, in which you’ll be guided around the places Dickens lived, worked and wrote about.

It tells you there are “more to come”, but since the last update was in 2012, it’s safe to assume the others have fallen by the wayside. The app was designed by the renowned London historian Richard Jones, in celebration of the bicentenary of Dickens’ birth in 1812. It tracks your location and lets you follow your progress on-screen, so remember to lift your eyes when crossing roads! This is also a text-based tour, and you’ll have to stop and read the excerpts. But that’s surely better than loading up a backpack with the great writer’s life work and leafing through the pages on a busy street corner. It’s available for free on iOS. All right Android-users: time to dust off your walking shoes, because here’s one we can all enjoy. London Guided Walks has been put together by a tour guide company as a tech extension of their live tours. There are a number of themed tours, with the option to download audio narration or read the text yourself on your phone’s screen. 

One thing to watch out for: while the app functions offline, you’ll need to make sure you download the content before you go, because the tour comes with high res images of each stop. The tours provide directions from one point to the next, and the app tracks your location to serve you the right content as you go. The directions also rely on road names, so if you don’t have a working knowledge of London’s streets you might be looking at your screen a lot. The tours are free for a limited time, with no indication of how much they’ll cost once the price appears, so grab it now, for iOS or Android.Let’s top it off with murdery back-alleys. The Ripper is one of London’s most well-known stories, and now you can take a guided lurk around 14 key locations surrounding his five grisly murders committed in the autumn of 1888. Jack The Ripper’s identity is still an unsolved mystery, although there are theories ranging from mad-surgeon-seeking-to-exact-revenge-on-the-prostitute-who-gave-him-syphilis to Freemasons-hired-by-Queen-Vic.

You’d probably do better to figure it out for yourself, really. There are a number of ways to explore. You can take the walking tour, following a suggested route, or you can just browse the locations. You could even read about them from home, if you like. You’ll need to have your eyes on the screen both for navigation and to read the stories, and sadly the whole experience doesn’t last much longer than half an hour. But all things considered, it’s a great way to piece together this infamous story. Get it for £0.79 on your iOS device. At VoiceMap, we’re passionate about the tech that allows you to choose your own adventure, and take your exploring at your own pace. A place is more than a checklist of sights, or markings on a map. It’s about the stories, and the people who shaped the city. There are amazing walking tour apps out there that allow you to do just that while you travel, and follow your heart instead of a little red flag. If you’re after a walking tour app that has a diverse range of tours in London and other cities across the globe, VoiceMap is available for iOS and Android and includes GPS autoplay, offline functionality, clear directions, and over 200 audio tours created by passionate storytellers.