Photo: Melissa McMasters (CC BY 2.0)
A self-guided audio walk along Newport's Cliff Walk, the shoreline path kept public by the fishing rights of the 1663 charter and the 1843 Rhode Island Constitution, and broken and rebuilt after the hurricanes of 1938, 1954 and 2012. From Memorial Boulevard it passes the Forty Steps, where household staff of the estates gathered, Ochre Court, now Salve Regina University, and Vinland with its carved grapevines, to The Breakers, built for Cornelius Vanderbilt II and completed in 1895. It goes on past Rosecliff, modeled on the Grand Trianon, Beechwood with the Astors' ballroom, and Marble House, where Alva Vanderbilt's Chinese Tea House on the cliff held rallies for women's suffrage, then Rough Point, Doris Duke's summer home, and Belcourt. The walk returns along Bellevue Avenue to Chateau-sur-Mer and The Elms, whose basement tunnel let coal and household staff move through the house unseen by guests. Cruise tenders land at Perrotti Park, about three kilometers from the start, which is reached on foot or by local trolley or bus.
13 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 · 66 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.
Stone steps down to the rocky shore, made public in 1840 and a gathering place for the household staff of the great estates.
Cornelius Vanderbilt II's summer house of 1895, built of steel, brick and limestone against fire, with its boiler room under the lawn.
Stanford White's summer pavilion modeled on the Grand Trianon at Versailles, faced in white terra cotta made to resemble marble.
Alva Belmont's painted cliffside tea house, where suffrage rallies were held and saucers read Votes for Women.
The Vanderbilt, Leeds and Duke family estate on the cliffs, left by Doris Duke to the public and opened for tours in 2000.
The Berwinds' limestone house modeled on the Château d'Asnières, with a basement tunnel that kept coal and staff out of guests' sight.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 13 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. 13 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 Newport — the Cliff Walk and the Bellevue Avenue Cottages, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
13 narration points, including Cliff Walk at Memorial Boulevard, Forty Steps, Ochre Court, The Breakers and Rosecliff. That is about 19 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. 13 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.