Ah! So it's off to Paris on holiday for us. The food, the culture, the museums....
And I'll be stuck paying several francs to use the goofy headphones with the lousy sound quality that the museums (and other tourist locales) rent to visitors for the standard audio tour.
Why doesn't someone set up a web site that allows a traveler to download MP3 audio tours of museums, cities, historical sites, and the like? Indeed, a proper site would allow self-styled experts to post their recorded audio tours for the world to click and choose from. Just think: it might be most interesting to visit Sacre Coeur and listen to the tour recorded by the Frenchman who's lived just around the corner for 10 years.
Such a system could provide a wide array of audio tours of sites and cities that just aren't available today. And it would present a more grassroots cultural exchange as we visit one another around the world. A popularity filtering system -- think Amazon.com -- would quickly surface the best audio tours to the top of the heap.
Perhaps it's free, perhaps it's for a fee, or perhaps it's up to the consumers to choose to pay or not.
So I'll pack my bags, download the audio tours of interest to my trusty iPod, and it's off to the airport....
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Excellent!A major symphony, not sure where, uses this technology for listeners to get a "play by play" of the music being played.
I could see this being an excellent way for school groups to get a LOT more out of the expensive trips they take to major cities. Instead of loading them on boring bus tours in huge groups, let them wander around in small groups with a chaperone and take in what really interests them. Not everybody has the Natural History Museum top of the list.And they'd get some exercise!
I was inspired by this idea and am working to make it real. One way to bring it to life is to invite people to make their own tour and then post it on the web. The URL EarGo was take, alas.
In New Haven, we could have a tour of the Green, Yale, the Cemetery, Rare books library, Amistad memorial, and more.
I looked on the web and found a good supply of driving tours (generally priced around $16 to $20). Here's a sample: the Grand Canyon, Alaska, Hawaii, and a company that produces them for museums.
But I haven't seen a people's version of this.
Hi I think this is a great idea. In fact several months ago I started a company called CityReads to being it to life. I started with just this idea of contributors from around the world adding tours and being judged for value but have moved (for now) to the idea of creating edited tours that are led by authors and artists. This has limited the speed and scale of the library we hope to build but offers very richly produced guides. My favorites so far are the one on The Tenderloin, and a as yet unpublished one by Mark Crispin Miller on media consolidation and Tmes Square which starts at the NY Times and ends at Fox News. Both bring specific points of view to places that enable people to have a new experience of place. MP3's seem to be an ideal way to distribute them and the addition of ID3 information - historic photos instead of album art can support the creation of in-depth portable guides. If the economics and content ownership and licensing can be figured out I think the answer lies somewhere in between the edited tour and the more open sourced model. Please take a look at CityReads. I look forward to your comments and suggestions.
AWESOME IDEA! If you could somehow tie the mp3 file with a GPS-type function so that as you walk/drive, the appropropriate comment would come up. Such as "On your left is the old boathouse, just keep walking and take the next left on Ironsides...". GPS is now accurate to 15 feet.
It's entirely reasonable to expect mobile devices in the near future (PDAs and cellphones) to have mp3 readback & GPS facilities built-in. This might even work for longer distance trips than simply walks, example: car trips. You could have a website where you allow folks to download trips for a fee. For example, if I want to visit California Gold country with the kids, the Trip MP3 file could do a great tour for me, and guide me along with the GPS so that I don't get lost, plus entertain with interesting commentary.
Might also be advertising revenue opportunities as you suggest the best restaurants to eat at for lunch, etc. You might also consider going beyond MP3's to full video DVD's for folks who'd like to visit the Louvre, but can't get over to Paris, and would like to visit from their living room couch...
I think this a terrific idea because I way prefer to walk around with my iPod than a heavy tour paperguide. I noticed that Barry got excited about it. Any breakthroughs?
Hi, I thought I would share a similar concept that my company, Mobile Adventures, has recently launched in Hong Kong. We offer guided walks of Central and Tsim Sha Tsui districts, in English, on mobile phones. All you need to do is buy a SIM card when you arrive, and we will be bundling them with our service starting in July. Our content is meant for both visitors and residents, and looks at what Hong Kong is all about and how it came to be here. The guided walks cover Hong Kong's history, its multicultural heritage, its architecture, its society and most of all, its sense of identity. They provide refreshing, candid opinions of the city and its people, as well as more mundane things such as where to eat, shop or find a bathroom. Mobile Adventures' dial-in number is "A-HK-STORY" (2-45-78679) and our easy-to-read maps are available at hotels and our website.
Now that pod casting has taken off, this should be easy. Just need a web site that allows people to post pod casts for tours and a rating system so people can pick likely tours (museums, city wks, art galleries, hiking trails etc) for where they want to go. Very cool idea.
Nice if you can link photos into the appropriate audio section so people are sure that they are looking in the right direction.
GPS co-ords for walking and hiking.
Maybe a free version of this could develop out of WikiTravel
I found one that does this at OGGtours.com. anybody can submit a podcast or audio tour of any destination in the world. It looks like there are well over 100 tours already available there.
whoa...messed that post up.
Rather try OGGtours.com
Here's a site, from the BBC, which has MP3 tours of 6 museums:http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/take_one/downloads.shtml
Hi we have done just that withwww.audioguide2go.com. a free portal.We have brought together all the audio guides, tours,walks and trails available as mp3 downloads for all the main tourist attractions and several lesser known ones.If you like to explore you will enjoy these.Some incur a fee but many are free.We also create mp3 tours ourselves and can convert existing audio tours into mp3 format.At the moment we cover the UK but are about to launch worldwide.Do have a look. You can add tours yourself and also review others.Explore the world at your own pace and really see the sights!
check out CityListen at www.citylisten.com for some really interesting city tours in new york city.