Photo: Bobjgalindo (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of Virginia's colonial capital, about two and a half kilometers from the College of William & Mary along Duke of Gloucester Street and the Palace Green to the Capitol. It starts at the Wren Building, begun in 1695, the Brafferton built in 1723 for the college's Indian School, and the President's House, built by enslaved workers hired out to the College. Then the Bray School and the site of the First Baptist Church, whose congregation traces its roots to 1776, the Public Hospital of 1773, Bruton Parish Church and George Wythe's house. Up the Palace Green to the Governor's Palace, then the Magazine, where Governor Dunmore had the gunpowder removed in April 1775, the Courthouse, the Peyton Randolph House, where twenty-seven enslaved people lived and worked, and William Parks's Printing Office. The walk ends with the Prentis Store, the taverns where burgesses met and Washington dined, the Capitol, where Patrick Henry introduced his Stamp Act resolves, and the Public Gaol.
22 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 · 330 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 9 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.
Wren Building, Brafferton, President's House, Bray School and First Baptist Church site, Public Hospital, Bruton Parish Church, George Wythe House.
Palace Green, Governor's Palace, Brush-Everard House, James Geddy House, Magazine, Courthouse, Peyton Randolph House, Printing Office.
Prentis Store, Ludwell-Paradise House, Wetherburn's Tavern, Raleigh Tavern, Capitol, Public Gaol, Christiana Campbell's Tavern.
Built in 1723 for the college's Indian School, where archaeologists found tools the Native American students made from European glass and stone.
A 1760 schoolhouse for free and enslaved Black children, beside the excavated meeting house and burial ground of the First Baptist Church.
The residence of seven royal governors, rebuilt on its original foundations from 1931, with gardens, a canal and the royal arms of George II.
The eight-sided brick storehouse of 1714 from which Governor Dunmore had fifteen half-barrels of gunpowder removed in April 1775.
Where burgesses dissolved by the governor in May 1769 reconvened in the Apollo Room and agreed to stop importing British goods.
Rebuilt on the original foundations, where Patrick Henry introduced his Stamp Act resolves and Virginia voted in 1776 to propose independence.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 22 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. 22 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 Colonial Williamsburg — the Capital of Colonial Virginia, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
22 narration points, including Wren Building, Brafferton, Bray School and First Baptist Church site, Bruton Parish Church and George Wythe House. That is about 40 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. 22 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.