Photo: Raychristofer (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of Port Royal, at the tip of the Palisadoes, the port that grew after the English took Jamaica from Spain in 1655 and prospered on buccaneers' plunder, trade and plantation wealth built on the enslavement of Africans. It starts at the old Naval Dockyard, headquarters of the British navy in the Caribbean after 1692, and goes past St Peter's Church, rebuilt in 1725 to 1726 with walls four feet thick, and the Old Gaol House, one of the few buildings standing from before the earthquake. Then the cast-iron Naval Hospital of about 1818, built with the labour of enslaved Africans, and the shore above the Sunken City, where on June 7, 1692, the ground liquefied and between three-fifths and two-thirds of the town disappeared beneath the sea. The walk ends at Fort Charles, Nelson's Quarter Deck, the Giddy House, tilted by the earthquake of 1907, and the Victoria and Albert Battery. The whole walk stays within the small town, close to the pier.
9 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 · 15 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata (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.
Port Royal Naval Dockyard, St Peter’s Church, Old Gaol House.
Historic Naval Hospital, Sunken City of Port Royal, Fort Charles.
Nelson’s Quarter Deck, Giddy House, Victoria and Albert Battery.
The parish church rebuilt in 1725 to 1726 with walls four feet thick, its original black-and-white aisle tiles still in place.
A cut-stone women's jail standing from before 1692, through fourteen hurricanes, two earthquakes and two major fires.
A hospital of prefabricated cast iron from England, built about 1818 by enslaved Africans, that sheltered the town in 1951.
The drowned town under the harbour, sunk in the earthquake of June 7, 1692, where a recovered watch stopped at 11:43.
The first fort at Port Royal, begun as Fort Cromwell after 1655 and renamed in 1662, mounting 104 guns by 1765.
The Royal Artillery Store of 1888, left leaning at a disorienting angle when the ground beneath it liquefied in the earthquake of 1907.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 9 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. 9 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 Port Royal, Jamaica — the Sunken City and Fort Charles, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
9 narration points, including Port Royal Naval Dockyard, St Peter’s Church, Old Gaol House, Historic Naval Hospital and Sunken City of Port Royal. That is about 12 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. 9 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.