Photo: AlaskaDave (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A self-guided audio tour of Hilo on Hawaiʻi Island, from the missionary streets above downtown to the bay. It starts at the Lyman Mission House, home of Hilo's first permanent Congregational missionaries, and the Naha Stone, which tradition says the young Kamehameha moved, then passes St. Joseph and Haili churches, the Federal Building of 1917 and Kalākaua Park, the town square dedicated by King Kalākaua. Downtown come the old commercial blocks of Keawe Street and Kamehameha Avenue: the Masonic lodge's Kaikodo Building, Koehnen's, the Pacific Tsunami Museum in a bank that survived the 1946 tsunami, the Kress Building, the Palace Theater of 1925 and the S. Hata Building of 1912. Along the bay it tells the tsunamis of 1946 and 1960 at the Kamehameha statue, the Wailoa Tsunami Memorial and the site of Shinmachi, the Japanese neighborhood that was not rebuilt, and ends at the Waiākea Kai Clock, Liliʻuokalani Gardens, Moku Ola and the named banyans of Banyan Drive. The cruise pier is about two miles from downtown.
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 · 38 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 12 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.
Lyman Mission House, Naha Stone, St. Joseph Church, Haili Church, Federal Building, Kalākaua Park, East Hawaiʻi Cultural Center.
Kaikodo Building, Koehnen's Building, Kaipalaoa Landing, Pacific Tsunami Museum, Kress Building, Palace Theater, S. Hata Building, Moʻoheau Park.
Kamehameha Statue at Wailoa, Wailoa Tsunami Memorial, Shinmachi Site, Waiākea Kai Clock, Liliʻuokalani Gardens, Moku Ola, Banyan Drive's named trees.
The volcanic rock brought from Kauaʻi, which tradition says only a Naha chief could move, and which the young Kamehameha moved.
Hilo's town square, dedicated by King Kalākaua around 1877, with his bronze statue beneath the banyan and a war memorial.
An Art Deco bank of 1930 that survived the 1946 tsunami, now telling Pacific tsunami history with survivors' accounts.
Sadanosuke Hata's store of 1912, curving with the old bend of Kamehameha Avenue under a row of 14 round-arched windows.
The Japanese neighborhood destroyed by the tsunami of 1946, rebuilt, destroyed again in 1960 and turned into a green zone.
A clock of 1939 whose hands stand at 1:04 a.m., the time of the third and largest wave of the 1960 tsunami.
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 Hilo — the Bayfront Town and Its Tsunamis, 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 Naha Stone, Haili Church, Kalākaua Park, Pacific Tsunami Museum and Palace Theater. That is about 29 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.