Photo: MaedaAkihiko (CC0)
A self-guided audio walking tour along Hakodate's bay and up through the slopes of Motomachi below Mount Hakodate, ending at Higashi Honganji's Hakodate Betsuin near the Jujigai tram stop. It starts at the Hakodate Meiji-kan, the red-brick post office of 1911, and the Kanemori Red Brick Warehouses, a business opened in 1887 for the cargo of the port. In the old commercial quarter it visits the Museum of Northern Peoples in the former Bank of Japan branch, the site of the head office of Takadaya Kahei, who set up here in 1798, and the Chinese Memorial Hall of 1910. Up Motoi-zaka it passes the statue of Commodore Perry, whose Black Ships anchored in Hakodate Bay in May 1854, the Former British Consulate, the Old Public Hall of Hakodate Ward, the Former Hokkaido Government Hakodate Branch Office of 1909 and the Soma family's house, and visits Funadama Shrine. It goes down Hachiman-zaka, one of the broad slopes built as firebreaks, to the Orthodox church with its six cupolas, St John's Church, the Catholic Motomachi Church of 1924 and Daisan-zaka, and ends at the reinforced-concrete temple of Higashi Honganji, built after the fire of 1907.
18 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 · 51 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 5 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.
Hakodate Meiji-kan, Kanemori Red Brick Warehouses, Hakodate City Museum of Northern Peoples, Takadaya Head Office Site, Hakodate Chinese Memorial Hall, Motoi-zaka.
Perry Statue, Former British Consulate, Old Public Hall of Hakodate Ward, Former Hokkaido Government Hakodate Branch Office, Former Soma Residence, Funadama Shrine.
Hachiman-zaka, Hakodate Orthodox Church, St John's Church, Catholic Motomachi Church, Daisan-zaka, Higashi Honganji Hakodate Betsuin.
The waterfront warehouses of the business Watanabe Kumashiro opened in 1887 for the cargo of the northern trade routes.
The meeting hall of Hakodate's Chinese residents, built in 1910, the only purely Chinese-style brick building in Japan.
The bronze Commodore Perry at the foot of Motomachi Park, marking the Black Ships' arrival in Hakodate Bay in May 1854.
The public hall at the top of Motoi-zaka, built after the great fire of 1907 destroyed the old assembly hall.
The white-plastered brick church with green copper roofs and six cupolas, built to replace the church lost in the fire of 1907.
The church of 1924, rebuilt inside the brick walls left standing after the great fire of 1921, on a site of Catholic worship since 1859.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 18 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. 18 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 Hakodate — the Motomachi Slopes, the Churches and the Red-Brick Bay, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
18 narration points, including Hachiman-zaka, Hakodate Orthodox Church, Hakodate Meiji-kan, Kanemori Red Brick Warehouses and Hakodate City Museum of Northern Peoples. That is about 22 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. 18 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.