It follows your feet
No tapping, no scrolling, no holding your phone up like a tourist. You walk, and when you come within about 40 metres of a place worth knowing, the story starts. When it ends, the next one nearby counts you in.
WanderWalkDownloadThe word on the street.
Hear the London hiding in plain sight
WanderWalk is a walking audio guide that follows your feet. Walk past a place with a story, and the story plays in your ear. Hands in your pockets, phone in your bag, like a podcast that knows exactly where you are. Built for Londoners who already know Big Ben and want the stuff nobody put on the plaque.
Dark and untold history
Bow Street Police Museum
A 28-minute walk through 8 stops around Covent Garden.
0:10
Hidden, not the highlights reel
Every story is source-backed and written like a friend grabbed your arm to tell you something. No ‘famous clock tower’ filler. The plague pit under the park, the rebel who struck a stone, the trade a street is named after and nobody remembers.
Made for locals
Built for people who live here, not for the open-top bus. The kind of history that makes you look at a street you walk down every day and think, hang on, that happened here?
Keeps playing on patchy signal
Once a story is cached it keeps going through the dead spots, the tunnels and the basement bars. The work of deciding what plays happens on your phone, not on a server somewhere.
Bow Street in 1749: London tries something new
In seventeen forty-nine, a magistrate at Bow Street tried something London had never had.
Henry Fielding paid a small group of men to go out and investigate crime, and they became known as the Bow Street Runners.
They were trained, they were paid, and they were attached to the court. The museum here calls them London's first official law enforcement service, and this was decades before the Metropolitan Police existed.
The building in front of you came much later, the police station and magistrates' court that opened in eighteen eighty-one.
The cases heard here reached well beyond ordinary crime. In eighteen ninety-five, Oscar Wilde was held overnight in a cell here.
In nineteen oh eight, Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst stood in its dock, after a suffragette demonstration at Parliament.
Most of the building is a hotel now. But part of the old station is the Bow Street Police Museum, where you can walk into the cells and see the police and court history kept inside.
A free stop on Thief-Takers and Hidden Rooms. Press play and the words light up as you hear them.
How it works
- 1
Tell it what you're into
Pick from 8 categories. Dark history, hidden buildings, the river, whatever pulls you. It uses that to choose which story plays when 2 places compete.
- 2
Put your phone away and walk
Pick a curated walk or just turn on free roam. Headphones in, phone in your pocket. When you come within about 40 metres of a story, it starts on its own.
- 3
Let one story lead to the next
When a story ends, the app offers the nearest one you have not heard and counts you in. Skip it, replay it, or carry on. London does the rest.
Curated walks
35 curated walks at launch
Hand-built routes with a clear thread, ordered stop by stop. One of them is free forever. The rest come with WanderWalk+.
View all 35 walks →- 01Free
Thief-Takers and Hidden Rooms: Covent Garden and the Temple
Covent Garden, Lincoln's Inn and the Temple
- 02Plus
Twickenham Reach: Wren's Lost Tower to Ham House
Twickenham and Ham Riverside
- 03Plus
Albertopolis: The Secrets of Exhibition Road
South Kensington
- 04Plus
Cheyne Walk: Chelsea's Riverside Secrets
Chelsea Riverside
- 05Plus
Bones, Whips and Wandering Kings of Soho
Soho and Trafalgar Square
- 06Plus
Stories near you
No fixed route, no walking directions, no plan. Free roam just listens to where you are and triggers any story you have not heard yet within range, ranked to the things you said you cared about. Walk to the shops, walk the dog, walk home from the pub, and London tells you what happened where you're standing. WanderWalk+ opens free roam across the whole city.
- Dark and untold history
- Buildings with secrets
- Food and drink
- Nature and the river
- Stage, screen and sound
- Power and money
- Churches, cemeteries and belief
- Transport, docks and industry
The player
Built to live in your pocket
It behaves like a proper audio app, because that's what it is. Lock the phone, drop it in your bag, and keep walking. Everything you'd expect from your favourite podcast app is here, tuned for a story that's tied to a place.
- Full written transcripts for every story, so you can read along or read instead
- An Apple Maps Look Around street view of each spot, so you can see exactly where you're standing
- Lock-screen and Control Centre playback, so you never have to wake the phone to pause
- A 15-second skip back, for the bit you half-heard over a passing bus
- Speed control, for when you walk faster than the narrator talks
- Autoplay that offers the next story nearby and counts you in
One walk free, then open London for less than a pint
No weekly limit and no charge per story. Try the free walk, grab a 7-day pass for a trip, or open the whole city with WanderWalk+.
Free
£0forever
- The full Thief-Takers and Hidden Rooms: Covent Garden and the Temple walk, forever
- Lock-screen controls, transcripts, Look Around and 15-second skip
- No account required to start listening
WanderWalk+
£29.99/ year · or £9.99 mo
- Every story across London, not just the free walk
- All 35 curated walks at launch, and every new one we add
- Free roam unlocked across the whole city
- New stories and walks as London keeps giving us material
7-Day Pass
£5.99/ 7 days · one-off
- Every story and walk across London for a week
- Free roam unlocked, no fixed route
- One payment, no auto-renew, nothing to cancel
WanderWalk+ is £9.99 a month or £29.99 a year (best value, about £2.50 a month), billed through Apple, cancel any time. The 7-Day Pass is a one-time £5.99 purchase with no auto-renew. More cities to come.
Answers before you start
A London walking audio guide
A walking audio guide for London. It uses your location to play a short narrated story when you're close to a place worth knowing about. Choose a hand-built walk or use Wander mode to hear stories near you.
Headphones work best
Headphones let your phone stay in your pocket so you can keep your eyes on the street and the city around you. Any headphones or earbuds work. You can also use your phone speaker.
Downloaded stories work without signal
Once a story is downloaded, it keeps playing through patchy signal, tunnels, basements and dead spots. The map needs data to load tiles and the first play downloads the audio.
One full walk is free
Thief-Takers and Hidden Rooms: Covent Garden and the Temple is free forever. You do not need an account to start. A £5.99 7-Day Pass unlocks everything for a week. WanderWalk+ is £9.99 a month or £29.99 a year.
London comes first
WanderWalk launches with 35 curated walks and more than 2,700 individual London stories. The catalogue will keep growing.
Location and audio use less data
WanderWalk uses location while you use the app. Your phone decides which story to play. Audio downloads once and stays cached, so it does not stream again every time you pass.
Location stays mainly on your phone
Precise location is used only while you use the app. It is mainly processed on your device to choose a story. We do not sell your location or share it for advertising. Read the privacy policy for full details.
Download WanderWalk on the App Store
WanderWalk is available on the App Store for iPhone. One complete walk is free forever, so you can try it before paying.
Hear the secrets your city has kept
WanderWalk is out now on iPhone. One walk free, and the whole city a tap away, ready for the next time you're out walking the corners you cross every day.
Download on the App StoreWanderWalk is an ElevenLabs Grants recipient.
