Photo: Radiodreamer (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walk through the historic centre of Oaxaca, a city built in green cantera stone and, with Monte Albán, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1987. From the Zócalo, laid out in 1529 for the Spanish town of Antequera, with the cathedral, consecrated in 1733, and the Palacio de Gobierno with its staircase murals by Arturo García Bustos, to the iron-roofed Mercado Benito Juárez of 1894 and the Mercado 20 de Noviembre with its Pasillo de Humo, the churches of La Compañía and San Felipe Neri, where Benito Juárez and Margarita Maza married in 1843, and the Teatro Macedonio Alcalá, which opened with Aida in 1909. Then north up the pedestrian Andador Macedonio Alcalá, past the house where the young Juárez worked for a bookbinder and Francisco Toledo's graphic arts institute, to Santo Domingo, its convent now the Museo de las Culturas with the treasure of Tomb 7 of Monte Albán, and the ethnobotanical garden in the convent's old orchard; on to Carmen Alto and the arches of the San Felipe aqueduct, and west to the Basílica de la Soledad, home of the city's patroness.
17 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 · 116 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 1 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.
Zócalo, Palacio de Gobierno, Mercado 20 de Noviembre, Mercado Benito Juárez, Templo de la Compañía de Jesús, Templo de San Felipe Neri.
Basílica de la Soledad, Catedral Metropolitana de Oaxaca, Teatro Macedonio Alcalá.
Andador Macedonio Alcalá, Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán, Museo de las Culturas de Oaxaca, Jardín Etnobotánico de Oaxaca, Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca, Templo del Carmen Alto, Casa de Juárez, Arcos de Xochimilco.
A market built between 1862 and 1882 on the site of the convent of San Juan de Dios, with its Pasillo de Humo of grilled meats.
The Dominican church begun in 1575, with the gilded family tree of Saint Dominic on the ceiling inside the entrance and the Capilla del Rosario.
The former Dominican convent, whose most famous room holds the treasure of Tomb 7 of Monte Albán, found by Alfonso Caso in 1932.
The bookbinder's house where Benito Juárez, a Zapotec boy from Guelatao, worked from 1818 and had his schooling paid for.
A green-stone theatre and casino opened in 1909 with Verdi's Aida, with a white-marble staircase and a horseshoe auditorium.
Built low and thick-walled between 1682 and 1697 against earthquakes, for the image of the Virgin who is patroness of Oaxaca.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 17 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. 17 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 Oaxaca — the Zócalo, Santo Domingo and the Green-Stone City, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
17 narration points, including Zócalo, Palacio de Gobierno, Catedral Metropolitana de Oaxaca, Andador Macedonio Alcalá and Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán. 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 ~3 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 17 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.