Photo: Daniel Kraft (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A self-guided audio tour in 18 stops. At Urquhart Castle: the visitor centre, the replica trebuchet, the ditch and drawbridge, the gatehouse blown up in 1692, the Upper and Nether Baileys, the great hall, the water gate, the Grant Tower and the loch, Scotland's second-deepest. In Drumnadrochit: the Loch Ness Centre, where the modern monster story has its roots, the war memorial, the village green, the bridge over the River Enrick, the old Kilmore burial ground, Urquhart Bay Wood and the harbour. Last, the cairn by the loch to John Cobb, killed on Loch Ness in 1952 in his jet boat Crusader. The monster is told honestly, from St Columba's beast in the River Ness to the 1934 'surgeon's photograph', admitted in 1994 to be a hoax. About 2.5 km on foot at the castle and in the village; the castle and Drumnadrochit are about 3 km apart along the A82, and the Cobb memorial is a lay-by on the same road, both reached by car or bus.
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 · 20 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 8 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.
Urquhart Castle Visitor Centre, Trebuchet, Ditch and drawbridge, Gatehouse, Upper Bailey, Nether Bailey, Great Hall, Water Gate, Grant Tower, Loch Ness.
Loch Ness Centre, Glen Urquhart War Memorial, Drumnadrochit Village Green, Bridge over the River Enrick, Old Kilmore Cemetery, Urquhart Bay Wood, Urquhart Bay Harbour.
John Cobb Memorial.
A full-size working replica of a medieval siege engine, built in 1998 beside the path down to the castle.
The castle's entrance, blown up by government troops around 1692 so the Jacobites could not use it.
The Grants' tower house over the loch, which survived the 1692 destruction until part of it fell in a storm in 1715.
Scotland's second-deepest loch, about 230 metres at its deepest, and the honest story of its monster.
The old Drumnadrochit Hotel: in 1933 Aldie Mackay, who ran it with her husband, reported the sighting usually taken as the start of the modern monster story.
A beehive-shaped cairn designed by the Celtic artist George Bain for John Cobb, killed on the loch in his jet boat Crusader in 1952.
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 Loch Ness — Urquhart Castle and Drumnadrochit, 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 Urquhart Castle Visitor Centre, Gatehouse, Upper Bailey, Nether Bailey and Great Hall. That is about 33 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 ~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.