How We Travel Archives | VoiceMap's Blog

Browse beyond a single shelf with VoiceMap 16 and a library that spans the globe

At the top of VoiceMap’s leaderboard, there’s a dizzyingly accomplished traveller who has done 178 tours in 20 countries and 77 destinations. She’s walked over 400km (250mi), covered almost 1,000km (600mi) by car, and spent a total of 250 hours – more than 10 days – doing VoiceMap tours.

She’s not alone. The top 5% of our users do roughly 25% of our tours, with an average of 12 walks, drives, and museum guides per person, so far, in a cohort that has doubled in size since January this year. If you’re in this group, version 16 is for you – and we’d also love to interview you for our new series, How We Travel. Just tell us about yourself here.

So, what will you find in this update?

How We Travel: Marian and Alan on why “people are people are people”

Marian and Alan met over happy hour drinks on a cruise ship in 2021, and have hardly stopped travelling since. The retired couple have taken around 20 cruises in the past four years. They discovered VoiceMap just before their last cruise, and used the app to explore in each of the twelve or so stops along the way.

This interview is part of our How We Travel series, in which we speak to VoiceMap’s community of curious explorers about how they travel.

How We Travel: Why Jo likes herself best in Greece

Jo’s three-month experiment in Greece with her partner Darrel in 2018 turned into a new, nomadic way of living. Since then, the couple have been moving between countries every few months, using South Africa and Greece as bases. Jo has taken around 25 VoiceMaps in several countries, from Georgia to Japan.

This interview is part of our new How We Travel series, in which we speak to VoiceMap’s community of curious explorers about how they travel.

How We Travel: Why “home means Marc and Pam” wherever they are

Pamela and Marc retired in 2023, sold their house in San Francisco, and set off to travel full time. Two and a half years and 48 countries later, the nomadic couple have no plans to stop.

Their approach is deliberately slow – a month or more in one place, renting an apartment, doing the grocery shopping, learning the bus routes – so that a destination has time to become, briefly, home. They’ve taken about thirty VoiceMap tours in 15 countries around the world.

This interview is part of our new How We Travel series, in which we speak to VoiceMap’s community of curious explorers about how they travel.

How We Travel: Why travel makes Yao Zhao a better version of himself

Yao Zhao is one of those people who seems to be perpetually travelling. Originally from Chongqing in southwestern China and now based in Washington, DC, these days, he spends roughly three months abroad each year.

He’s got piles of energy and runs his business, 50Hertz Tingly Foods, from anywhere in the world – yet he’s also drawn to slowing down on remote islands, and going nowhere in particular. He’s the instigator behind ambitious trips with his many friends as often as he strikes out alone, and has a remarkable talent for making new ones wherever he goes. He’s taken VoiceMap tours in around twenty destinations around the world.

This is the first interview in a new blog series, How We Travel, in which we speak to VoiceMap’s community of curious explorers about how they travel.