Photo: Jennifer Morrow from San Francisco (CC BY 2.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour of the Savannah Historic District, from the bluff above River Street south through James Oglethorpe's plan of wards and squares to Forsyth Park. It begins at the Cotton Exchange, where the story of the 1859 sale remembered as the Weeping Time is told, the African-American Monument with its inscription by Maya Angelou, and City Hall; then Johnson Square, Ellis Square, whose lost market hall sparked the preservation movement, First African Baptist Church, built by its mostly enslaved members at night and finished in 1859, and the Telfair Academy. Wright Square holds the burial place of Tomochichi, and Chippewa Square Daniel Chester French's Oglethorpe. Then the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low, the Owens-Thomas House and its preserved quarters of the enslaved, Colonial Park Cemetery and the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist; the Andrew Low House, where the first Girl Scout troop gathered in 1912; the Green-Meldrim House, Sherman's headquarters, where a meeting of January 1865 came four days before Special Field Orders No. 15; Monterey Square and Congregation Mickve Israel; and Forsyth Park.
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 · 155 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 24 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.
Savannah Cotton Exchange, African-American Monument, Savannah City Hall, Johnson Square, Ellis Square, First African Baptist Church, Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Wright Square, Chippewa Square, Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace, Owens-Thomas House, Colonial Park Cemetery, Cathedral of St John the Baptist.
Andrew Low House Museum, Green-Meldrim House, Monterey Square, Congregation Mickve Israel, Forsyth Park.
Raised over a public road on five pairs of cast-iron columns, where cotton prices were set; the story of the Weeping Time, the sale of 436 people in 1859, is told here.
Grown from George Liele's congregation of the 1770s; the present church was built by its members, mostly enslaved, working at night, and finished in 1859.
Laid out in 1733; Tomochichi was buried at its centre in 1739, beneath where the Gordon Monument now stands.
William Jay's Regency house of 1816–19, with exceptionally preserved urban quarters of the enslaved and an indoor bridge over a glass floor.
Sherman's headquarters in 1864–65, where on 12 January 1865 he and Edwin Stanton met 20 Black religious leaders, four days before Special Field Orders No. 15.
Founded by the Jewish settlers who landed in July 1733, the oldest congregation in the South, in a Gothic synagogue of 1876–78 with a museum inside.
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 Savannah — Oglethorpe's Squares, the River and the Bluff, 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 Savannah Cotton Exchange, African-American Monument, Savannah City Hall, Johnson Square and Ellis Square. That is about 35 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 ~2½–3 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.