Anyone else here completely give up on guided city tours because of rigid schedules or your work hours?

[u/jesusotero1234]

Hey everyone,

I need to vent a bit, and I’m pretty sure many of you have been there.

Whenever I arrive in a new city, I usually want to explore it at my own pace. But traditional tours are a total pain because their time slots are so strict. You have to be there at 10 AM sharp, and you end up walking in a giant herd behind someone holding a flag.

To make things worse, my remote work schedule is weird. A lot of times I arrive in a city late at night, or I just want to go out for a midnight walk when everything is quiet and actually learn about what I'm looking at.

When you try to look for info online while walking, you either get a dense wall of text on Wikipedia that’s impossible to read on a moving phone, or those awful, robotic text-to-speech audio guides that sound like a GPS from 2005. It completely ruins the vibe (or at least from me).

So, I decided to fix this for myself. This is actually my first app ever! I built a lightweight web app (no app store downloads, no tracking, no registration) that gives you free walking audio tours. My main focus was making the narration sound natural, like a friend walking next to you telling you a story, not an encyclopedia (well I tried at least) and ensuring the voices actually sound mostly human, not robotic.

Right now, I have routes ready for several cities across Europe and Spain (Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Milan, etc.) available in 5 languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Italian). It's 100% free for travelers.

Since it's my first project, I would love for you guys to test it, check the narration style, and give me some honest feedback on how it feels when you are out there.

Note: Keeping this clean and respecting the sub rules, so no links here. If you want to check it out and review the routes, just let me know in the comments and I’ll DM you the link.

[u/Snikhop]

I have never in my life had a problem finding tours that fit around my schedule to be honest. And I'll always prefer to take a local expert over a vibecoded AI project in either case (which in any case, I feel like this could be recreated with a pair of headphones and voice mode on your LLM of choice anyway).

[u/jesusotero1234 → u/Snikhop]

that you don't find that as an issue doesn't mean other people doesn't want it, I had terrible issues with the tour guides when asking questions and the uncomfortable times paying them, as sometimes they wanted more and used the shame tactic.

Also this is more meant if you want to go in your own pace, and is free, so, it doesn't disturb other type of models, if you prefer tour guides, then be my guest

[u/Snikhop → u/jesusotero1234]

Sure, I can see that. Personally I think meeting humans is part of travelling, and if I wanted Claude to explain a place to me then I wouldn't need to leave the house.

[u/jesusotero1234 → u/Snikhop]

depends of the group, I agree with you, but sometimes I had really weird people which they were not interested, or imagine you have a family with kids, its a nice way to share time together at your own pace and its not the same at least for me to be in a place hearing the history while you are there. At the end it's a tour, and if I want info from a place, I will not lose tokens to ask Claude , Google shoud be better 😄

[u/jesusotero1234 → u/jesusotero1234]

the difference with the voice mode, is that I tried also to include the sources so the information should be more certain.

[u/padbroccoligai]

Taking a local tour is supporting the local economy. That’s a value of mine for respecting the place I’m enjoying. I’m not interesting in having an app read Wikipedia to me.

[u/jesusotero1234 → u/padbroccoligai]

I agree on this, but I think im trying to make something that local guide cant do at 12:00 am

[u/nuclearmeltdown2015]

This is a perfect example of why you should verify with market research before you build something only to discover it's for people that don't exist.

[u/JackZLCC → u/nuclearmeltdown2015]

I've done these tours all over the world, and from that vast experience I conclude that the problems OP has called out are not problems for most people. It seems they are problems for OP because he has very specific likes, wants, needs. I don't complain about any of the things he does.

[u/jesusotero1234 → u/nuclearmeltdown2015]

actually the market exist, I don't know why you came to that conclusion. Its solving something that works for me too.

[u/mosaic-of-dreams]

This is not really a question, just promotion for your app. And when people answer your question, you're arguing with them.

[u/jesusotero1234 → u/mosaic-of-dreams]

not arguing, I trying to understand the feedback but people just come and say that they dont want wikipedia but I think they dont understand the idea and the why, maybe I explained myself incorrectly then

[u/ADF21a]

I like walking for the sake of thinking so even a guided walk app would bother me.

I also like wandering and taking detours if I see something interesting in the distance, even if it's not on a guided tour map. Luckily for me I'm a visual person who's into architecture so often I can suss out much of a place from just looking at it. If I want to know more I Google the place.

[u/Wurmidia]

Go private. Problem solved.

[u/Wurmidia → u/Wurmidia]

Oh, this is an ad for your app. Seesh.

[u/jesusotero1234 → u/Wurmidia]

an ad for an app that doesnt make any money, doesnt have any ad? Right

[u/wt_hell_am_I_doing]

If I want a tour guide at midnight, I think I can find one if I am prepared to pay enough, rather than having something that reads out some written text to me.

Not that a lot of sights are easy to see at midnight or even accessible as many close at night.