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The word on the street.

Hear the London hiding in plain sight

WanderWalk is a self-guided walking tour London app for iPhone, and an audio guide for London. Do a London walking tour on your own. 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.

Map of the Thief-Takers and Hidden Rooms walkRiver Thames1234576

Dark and untold history

Bow Street Police Museum

A 34-minute walk through 7 stops around Covent Garden.

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01

It follows your feet

If you want the best audio guide for London you can use without a live guide, this is how WanderWalk works. It is an audio guide for London: a London walk with commentary that starts when you come within about 40 metres of a place worth knowing. When it ends, the next one nearby counts you in. No tapping, no scrolling, no holding your phone up like a tourist.

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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.

03

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?

04

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.

Free sample · Dark and untold historyBow Street Police Museum

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 stop on Thief-Takers and Hidden Rooms, free to hear here. Press play and the words light up as you hear them.

How it works

  1. 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. 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. 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. Any paid access option opens every route.

View all 35 walks →
The WanderWalk Walks screen listing curated London walks over a map of the route

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. Any paid access option 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 WanderWalk now-playing screen, with the map, playback controls and the route list

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

Try WanderWalk on a London street

Your free 15-minute trial starts when GPS triggers your first story. Browsing and 20-second previews do not start the clock. Bow Street plays in full from anywhere.

Free street trial

£0street trial

  • 15 minutes after GPS triggers your first London story
  • 20-second previews before you walk
  • The first half of preview transcripts
  • One full Bow Street Police Museum story from anywhere

3-Day Pass

£4.99/ 3 days · one-off

  • Every London story and walk for 3 days
  • Wander mode across the city
  • One payment with no auto-renewal

7-Day Pass

£7.99/ 7 days · one-off

  • Every London story and walk for 7 days
  • Wander mode across the city
  • One payment with no auto-renewal
For Londoners

WanderWalk+ Annual

£29.99/ year

  • Every London story and all 35 curated walks
  • Wander mode across the city
  • New stories and walks while your subscription is active
  • Renews annually through Apple until you cancel
Download

The 3-Day Pass is a one-time £4.99 purchase. The 7-Day Pass is a one-time £7.99 purchase. WanderWalk+ Annual costs £29.99 a year and auto-renews through Apple until you cancel.

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.

Your free trial starts on the street

Your one-time 15-minute trial starts when GPS triggers your first London story. Browsing and 20-second previews do not start the clock. Bow Street Police Museum also plays in full from anywhere. A £4.99 3-Day Pass, £7.99 7-Day Pass or £29.99 annual subscription opens every London story and walk.

London comes first

WanderWalk has 35 curated walks and 4,500 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. Try 15 GPS-triggered minutes free on a London street, hear 20-second previews from anywhere or play Bow Street in full.

Hear the secrets your city has kept

WanderWalk is out now on iPhone. Try 15 GPS-triggered minutes free on a London street, then keep your city talking with annual access.

Download

WanderWalk is an ElevenLabs Grants recipient.

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Bow Street Police MuseumDark and untold history
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