Photo: CareAhLine (CC0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of San Felipe de Puerto Plata on the Dominican Republic's north coast. It starts at the Fortaleza San Felipe on the point, begun in 1563 to guard the harbor, and tells how Columbus named the mountain behind the bay in 1493 and how the crown ordered the town emptied and destroyed in 1605 and 1606. Beside the fort stands the memorial to the 189 people killed on Birgenair Flight 301 in 1996. The walk follows the Malecón, inaugurated in 1971, to the Masonic lodge founded in 1867 and the house museum of General Gregorio Luperón, a leader of the War of Restoration, then through the Paseo de Doña Blanca to the Parque Central and its Victorian gazebo, rebuilt after the town was burned in 1863. It ends at the Cathedral of San Felipe Apóstol, the amber museum in Villa Bentz and the Baldwin steam locomotive of 1911 by the old railway station. Cruise ships dock at Taíno Bay, in the town's own port, or at Amber Cove, a drive to the west at Maimón.
10 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 · 26 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.
Fortaleza San Felipe, Birgenair Flight 301 Memorial.
The Malecón, Museo Masónico, Casa Museo General Gregorio Luperón, Paseo de Doña Blanca, Parque Central.
Cathedral of San Felipe Apóstol, Museo del Ámbar, Locomotora de Vapor.
The coral-stone fort begun in 1563 to guard the harbor, later a prison, with Spanish bronze cannons still aimed at the Atlantic.
A granite obelisk on the seafront carrying the names of the 189 people killed when Flight 301 crashed into the sea in 1996.
The house where Luperón, a leader of the War of Restoration against Spanish annexation, lived and died in 1897.
The square rebuilt after the town was burned in 1863, with the octagonal Victorian gazebo, La Glorieta, at its center.
Completed in 1956 on the site of a wooden church burned in 1863, with twelve columns for the Twelve Apostles inside.
A Baldwin steam locomotive of 1911 beside the old station of the railway that ran to Santiago from 1897 until about 1950.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 10 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. 10 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 Puerto Plata — Fortaleza San Felipe and the Victorian Town, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
10 narration points, including Fortaleza San Felipe, Birgenair Flight 301 Memorial, The Malecón, Museo Masónico and Casa Museo General Gregorio Luperón. That is about 15 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. 10 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.