Photo: Christian Córdova (CC BY 2.0)
A self-guided audio tour of Castro, founded in 1567 by Martín Ruiz de Gamboa to hold Chiloé for Spain. It starts on the Plaza de Armas and at the Iglesia San Francisco of 1912, built by Chiloé carpenters from alerce, cypress and other native woods and one of the Churches of Chiloé on UNESCO's World Heritage List. The Museo Regional tells the town's long run of destruction and rebuilding, from the Dutch attacks of 1600 and 1643 to the fires and the 1960 earthquake and tsunami, and Plazuela El Tren keeps a locomotive from the railway to Ancud. Along the shore are the stilt houses of Pedro Montt and the Feria Yumbel market; above the Gamboa river mouth, a viewpoint with the carved serpents of the Mapuche-Huilliche flood myth looks over the Palafitos de Gamboa. The church of Nercón, built between 1879 and 1890, is a separate trip about four kilometres south. Cruise ships anchor in the bay and bring passengers ashore by tender to the town's small pier.
9 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 · 35 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 3 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.
The Neo-Gothic wooden church of 1912 on the plaza, clad in galvanised iron and one of the UNESCO-listed Churches of Chiloé.
Founded in 1967, with church models, textiles and palafito models, and the story of a town repeatedly burned, looted and rebuilt.
A restored locomotive from the Castro–Ancud railway of 1912, on the site of the old station and yard by the harbour.
Stilt houses built from the early twentieth century, entered from the street and opening onto the tidal shore on luma and cypress piles.
A viewpoint over the Gamboa river mouth, with carved heads of Ten Ten Vilu and Cai Cai Vilu, the serpents of the Mapuche-Huilliche flood myth.
The church of Nuestra Señora de Gracia, built of alerce and cypress between 1879 and 1890 under a 25-metre tower, inscribed by UNESCO in 2000.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 9 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. 9 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 Castro, Chiloé — the Wooden Churches and the Palafitos, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
9 narration points, including Museo Regional de Castro, Plaza de Armas de Castro, Iglesia San Francisco, Plazuela El Tren and Palafitos de Pedro Montt. That is about 14 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. 9 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.