An AI tour guide app that walks with you and shows its sources.

What an AI tour guide app actually does

A classic audio-tour app sells you a fixed tour. Someone wrote a script for a set route, recorded it, and you follow their line through the city. That works well when the tour exists, starts near you, and fits the time you have.

An AI tour guide app starts from the other end. You say where you are, how long you have and what you like. The app picks places, puts them in walking order, and writes a short story for each stop. Because nothing is pre-recorded, the walk can start anywhere, be 40 minutes or two hours, and change when you do.

The good ones add two things a fixed tour can't: you can ask about anything you pass, and the route adjusts when you wander off it.

Five questions to ask before you trust one

1. Where do the facts come from?

This is the big one. A language model can write a fluent paragraph about any building, including ones it knows nothing about. Research on these models shows they are much less accurate about less famous things, which is exactly what a walking guide spends its time on. Look for an app that shows sources and can tell a documented fact from a local story or a legend. We wrote a longer piece on whether AI tour guides make things up.

2. Does the route fit a real walk?

A list of nice places is not a walk. Check that the app gives distances and timings, puts stops in a sensible order, and copes when you skip one or take a side street.

3. Can you ask about what's in front of you?

The best moment for a question is when you're standing there. Typing on a busy street is awkward, so voice and photo questions matter more than they sound.

4. Does it work without data?

Many fixed-tour apps let you download tours for offline use. Most AI guides need a connection because they write stories and answers live. If you'll be abroad without a data plan, this may decide it for you.

5. How do you pay?

Fixed-tour apps usually charge per tour or by subscription. AI guides tend to use credits. Work out what one walk actually costs you before you start.

How Strolio works

Strolio is an AI walking tour app for iPhone and Android. A walk takes three steps.

1. Tell it your walk. Start from your location, an address or a point on the map. Say how long you have, your pace, and what you're into: architecture, history, food, quiet streets. You can choose a loop, a there-and-back or a one-way route.
2. Pick a route. Strolio suggests several options, from well-known sights to more local places, each with a map, walking time, distance and stops.
3. Walk and ask. Stories play as you reach each stop. Ask a follow-up by typing, by voice, or by sending a photo of what you see. Answers can be read aloud.

During the walk you can also:

• reroute from where you are if you've drifted off the route;
• remove, replace or add stops on the map;
• add a coffee or food stop near your route;
• save a route to walk again later;
• share a live walk with friends, who follow along with a code or QR code.

Stories and answers are available in 93 languages.

How Strolio keeps stories accurate

Strolio collects documented facts about a place first, from archives, local publishers and open data such as OpenStreetMap and Wikidata, and writes the story from those. Each story is labelled as a fact, a local story or a legend, and the app lists its sources when it has them. If there isn't a reliable source, the story stays short.

In our own test on 12 places in Barcelona, the usual approach produced 7 factual contradictions. With checked sources, it produced none. It's a small internal test, not a guarantee, and we explain what it does and doesn't show in the full write-up.

Where Strolio is not the right pick (yet)

• No offline mode. Maps, routes, stories and answers need a data connection.
• It's in beta. On iPhone you install it through Apple's TestFlight; on Android through Google Play testing.
• No library of expert-recorded tours. If you want one historian's scripted tour of a single famous district, a fixed-tour app is a better fit. Our honest comparison covers the options.

What it costs

Strolio is free while it's in beta. Planned pricing is pay as you go rather than a subscription: $2.90 for either one hour of audio guide time or 15 personal routes.