Shop Audio Tours
Audio tours are self-guided walks that let you explore at your own pace while listening to stories unfold through your headphones. Instead of following a group, you follow a narrative — guided by a local voice that shares the history, architecture, and hidden corners of the city as you walk.
All audio experiences are available on VoiceMap platform
90 min by CityBeautifulTours
The tour starts in Hamilton Heights. You’ll walk the same streets where Alexander Hamilton spent his final years, Langston Hughes wrote his poetry, and jazz greats like Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong lived and performed. You’ll stroll down quiet streets, past the neo-Gothic campus of the City College of New York, and along bustling boulevards filled with shops, street art, and restaurants.
You’ll discover how Prohibition-era speakeasies sparked a musical revolution, how the Great Migration brought millions of African Americans north in search of freedom and opportunity, and how Harlem continues to evolve today. You’ll encounter everything from a mansion featured in Wes Anderson’s acclaimed 2001 film, The Royal Tenenbaums, to famous soul food restaurants that have fed Harlem for generations.
60 min by CityBeautifulTours
On this walking tour, you’ll discover the Flatiron District’s breathtaking landmarks and experience the 19th-century charm of Gramercy.
The tour starts in front of the Flatiron Building with a view of the area‘s magnificent skyline, from where you‘ll amble around Madison Square Park. As you walk, I‘ll show you a few of the district‘s secret places, including Worth Monument (a gravesite on Broadway), a statue that kept losing its glasses, and a truncated skyscraper that was supposed to tower over the world.
As you stroll around the perimeter of the exclusive Gramercy Park, you’ll hear about the actors, politicians, and assassins. The tour ends at Pete‘s Tavern, one of the oldest bars in the city that lived through Prohibition as a speakeasy.
90 min by CityBeautifulTours
St. Patrick’s Cathedral is more than New York’s architectural and spiritual landmark – it’s a book written in glass, stone, and light. During this indoor tour, you’ll see how St Patrick’s stained-glass windows reveal layers of biblical stories, historic events, and fables. You’ll discover how the Cathedral was conceived as a bold declaration of Catholic presence in a predominantly Protestant city, and completed in 1879 under the vision of Archbishop John Hughes.
Your journey begins at the Fifth Avenue entrance and follows the Cathedral’s perimeter, window by window, as its stories unfold through the luminous stained glass. You’ll uncover the symbolic vocabulary of Gothic architecture, and I’ll show you how to ‘read’ the Cathedral’s visual language – saints and martyrs, symbols, and mysteries.
90 min by CityBeautifulTours
The Oculus is one of New York’s most breathtaking modern landmarks. Designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, this soaring white structure rises like a bird in flight, symbolizing the city’s rebirth after 9/11. On this indoor tour, you’ll hear about the meaning behind its dramatic form and learn how Calatrava used light as a living element of the design. You’ll also find out how the Oculus is connected to the 9/11 Memorial and the new World Trade Center – a story where tragedy, rebirth, art, and architecture intertwine.
Central Park Walk: The Mall, Bethesda Fountain, and more
120 min by TellBetter
The most popular tour by TellBetter. Not just a walk in the park, a stroll through time, with exciting stories, fascinating personalities and hidden secrets. Relive the great zoo escape. Decode the Bethesda Terrace. Spot the hidden witch. Learn why Balto is the wrong dog. And more. Tales of love, loss, treachery and tragedy at every turn.
The Gilded Age Guide: Mansions of Fifth Avenue and Millionaire’s Row
120 min by TellBetter
Every mansion has it’s story, and we bring them to life in dramatic fashion. With outrageous fortune comes outrageous behavior: extraordinary stories of love and loss, epic battles over status, and deliciously petty squabbles over the rules that govern society. This lavishly produced tour puts you in the ballrooms, carriages and clubs of the Gilded Age elite, including the characters whose lives inspired the HBO series.
Grand Central Terminal’s Secrets: A Self-Guided Audio Walking Tour
90 min by TellBetter
One of the top ten most visited tourist spots on earth, yet most visitors simply gawk for a few minutes, then leave, unaware of the hidden secrets, scandals and exciting stories. Location for countless famous movies and real-life dramas: Kidnappings and ransoms. Hippie riots and terrorist bombs. Plus a deep dive into the fascinating Vanderbilt clan who built it.
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