Photo: Wilson Hui from Calgary, Canada (CC BY 2.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of Banff, about four kilometres on streets and riverside paths, from the railway station through the town and over the Bow River to Bow Falls and the Banff Springs Hotel. It starts at the Arts-and-Crafts station the Canadian Pacific Railway built in 1910 and tells how, after railway workers came upon the hot springs on Sulphur Mountain in 1883, springs the local First Nations had long known, the government set the land aside in 1885 and in 1887 made it Canada's first national park. Along Banff Avenue come the Information Building, St. Paul's Presbyterian Church of 1930 in local stone, the Dave White Block, built for the town's role as a service centre for park visitors, St. George's-in-the-Pines on the highest point of the village, Rundle Memorial United Church of 1927 and the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, opened in 1968. Then come the Banff Park Museum of 1902 and 1903, the Bow River Bridge of 1920 and 1921, the log fort of the Buffalo Nations Luxton Museum, and the Park Administration Building and Cascade Gardens, built in 1935 and 1936 as a work-relief project. The walk ends at Bow Falls and the Banff Springs Hotel, which the railway opened in 1888 at the meeting of the Bow and Spray rivers.
13 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 31 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 6 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Banff Railway Station, Banff Avenue and the Information Building, St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, Dave White Block.
St. George's-in-the-Pines, Rundle Memorial United Church, Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies.
Banff Park Museum, Bow River Bridge, Buffalo Nations Luxton Museum, Park Administration Building and the Cascade Gardens, Bow Falls, Fairmont Banff Springs.
The two-storey Arts-and-Crafts station the Canadian Pacific Railway built in 1910 for passengers and visitors to the park.
The Anglican church sited on the highest point of the village, its spire designed to harmonize with the slopes of Mount Rundle.
The museum the federal government built on Banff Avenue in 1902 and 1903, designed by the engineer John Stocks.
The bridge of 1920 and 1921 at the foot of Banff Avenue, built as a grand entrance to replace a single-lane iron truss bridge.
The administration building and gardens Harold C. Beckett designed for a 1930s work-relief program, built in 1935 and 1936.
The Canadian Pacific Railway's grand mountain resort on a promontory where the Bow and Spray rivers meet.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 13 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 13 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Banff — the Town, the Springs and the First National Park, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
13 narration points, including Banff Railway Station, Banff Avenue and the Information Building, St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, Dave White Block and St. George's-in-the-Pines. That is about 18 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 13 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.