VoiceMap's Blog

Upcoming Webinar | Weirdly Human: AI and the Future of Audio Tours

In November 2025, two very different albums were in the charts at the same time. One was made by an AI-generated artist that critics called “laughably generic.” The other took Rosalía three years to make, features the London Symphony Orchestra, and has her singing in 13 languages – a feat she emphasised involved no artificial intelligence at all. “The more we are in the era of dopamine,” she told the New York Times, “the more I want the opposite.”

This tension – between what AI can produce and what only humans can create – is playing out in audio tours too. If your tours sound neutral and interchangeable, like an encyclopaedia, then yes, AI can replicate them. But neuroscience research suggests there’s something measurably different about personal, first-person storytelling: it literally synchronises the listener’s brain with the speaker’s, triggers the release of trust hormones, and persists in memory long after polished facts have faded. Imperfection and vulnerability aren’t weaknesses to hide. They’re your greatest competitive advantage.

Caravans of the sea, songs in search of home, and Christmas in Copenhagen

Welcome to the nineteenth edition of VoiceMap’s newsletter, Senses of Direction, where we share stories from around the world that spark curiosity and stimulate your senses.

This month, we join Paul Salopek aboard a container ship, where men spend their days on “watery caravans,” moving the contents of our material lives – including most of the world’s Christmas presents. We also hear an astonishing performance by a bridge-building musician who’s learned to find “different homes” with his cello. Lastly, there’s a moving Christmas story about a fir tree, told with Hans Christian Andersen’s archetypal flair.

And, if you’re looking for a last-minute gift to celebrate Christmas – or simply curiosity – allow me to suggest VoiceMap’s vouchers. They’re simple without being commonplace, plus you can schedule delivery by email with a personal message for friends and family that share your delight in discovery.

Rosalía outperforms AI and Mona Lisa goes viral in 1911

Welcome to the eighteenth edition of VoiceMap’s newsletter, Senses of Direction, where we share stories from around the world that spark curiosity and stimulate your senses.

This month we whet our appetite for wide-ranging musical traditions via Rosalía’s visceral – and very human – new album, then we go to Paris to find out about a theft from the Louvre that generated more clickbait than the French Crown Jewels.

Lastly, we continue with art as a theme in Prague, where the city’s cheekiest sculptor created a witty memorial to the country’s “rock ‘n’ roll president.”

Publish in these key destinations or attractions and earn 80% royalties

Publish a tour at one of the attractions or destinations listed below by 31 March 2026 and you’ll earn 80% royalties through the end of June 2026. You’ll also receive $200 USD in marketing support, including a free Viator listing, a boosted Instagram Reel, and Google Things to Do ads.

Through our royalty programme earlier this year, we added tours in 36 new destinations, with many creators producing multiple tours. Some, like A History of Italy Podcast and Mark Whiteley in Portugal, published four tours each across different cities.

Some of the top-performing destinations included Ålesund, Norway, Messina, Italy, and Birmingham, UK. These tours quickly found their audience, with publishers often receiving their first royalty payments within just a few weeks – particularly in smaller cities and port towns where there’s steady visitor demand but limited guided tour options. For 2026, we’re expanding the programme to include popular attractions and themed tours as well.

Update 4 April 2026: Please note that we’re no longer accepting sign-ups for this year’s Royalty Programme.

How VoiceMap tours deliver consistent revenues over time

When publishers and content creators decide where to invest their time and resources, one question matters above all: How long will this content continue generating revenue?

In traditional book publishing, the answer is sobering. Most books follow what researchers call an “early peak, slow decay” pattern – a brief surge of sales followed by a steady decline into obscurity. But location-based audio content tells a dramatically different story.

I joined VoiceMap after 10 years in the podcast industry, which follows a similar distribution pattern to books. The longevity of VoiceMap audio tours was a welcome surprise to me, with many delivering increasing revenues year after year. It’s not just podcasts; YouTube videos and social posts also have very short lifespans – and many peak in just hours or days.

Publishing once and monetising over the long term is really attractive – especially when you consider that creating a VoiceMap tour doesn’t require a lot more effort than producing a single scripted podcast episode.

Audio Tour Case Study | Creating exceptional self-guided audio tours at scale

Context Travel has become one of VoiceMap’s largest publishers, with 90 self-guided tours across 17 countries at the time of writing. But, when the company first looked into offering audio guides, they faced a fundamental question.

Context Travel’s core product is small group or private tours guided by academic experts. It’s a high-end customer experience that cost hundreds of dollars. Could they create self-guided audio tours that matched their standards while also scaling quickly to meet demand?

When Context Travel started working with VoiceMap, they appointed a member of their team to handle the mapping, script editing, and recording for each tour. They soon realised this was an unnecessary cost, and they could trust us to work directly with Context Travel’s experts.

The company was also concerned about experts mapping their tour’s route themselves. These were art historians and archaeologists who wanted to share their expertise, not spend time learning fiddly tech. This problem was solved with MapMaker, VoiceMap’s easy-to-use mapping tool, combined with hands-on support from our team. The results speak for themselves: VoiceMap now manages the full production process and has delivered 90 tours for Context Travel with an average rating of 4.5 stars.

Jane Goodall’s travel writing, British ghosts, and Switzerland’s entitled cats

Welcome to the seventeenth edition of VoiceMap’s newsletter, Senses of Direction, where we share stories from around the world that spark curiosity and stimulate your senses.

This month we travel to Tanzania, where the late Dr Jane Goodall changed lives. We also get a glimpse of how the legal rights of cats have shaped Zurich.

Lastly, in celebration of Halloween – and because our Kickstarter campaign only has six days to go – we’re sharing spooky stories from VoiceMap tours across the UK. It’s a tiny sample because when you sift through the almost 350 tours we have there, you come to understand that the British are peculiarly fascinated by ghouls and ghosts.

London Special Edition

Welcome to this special edition of Senses of Direction where, today, we’re sharing stories about one city in particular: London. We’ve dropped a pin on the UK’s capital to celebrate the launch on Wednesday of our first ever Kickstarter project.

The focus of our project is a new set of features for the growing number of curious locals that take VoiceMap tours regularly – sometimes every weekend. We’re going to give this community early access to new tours, as well as a say in what we publish next.

We’re starting with the UK because we already cover 82 destinations there and we see an opportunity to offer something truly comprehensive, with a pipeline of new walks, drives, museum tours, and train trips.

In London itself, our count of tours has more than tripled since 2019 and today’s edition of Senses celebrates the “city of villages”. There’s the award-winning author Zadie Smith talking about her neighbourhood, a collection of iconic photographs, musings on what it means to be a Londoner, and three locations from VoiceMap’s latest tours there, pointing out the city’s foundation stone, a poetic guide to Covent Garden’s prostitutes, and a flat shared by Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles.

Go-go Shanghai, border bricolage in Baarle, and a rerun of the Gilded Age

Welcome to the sixteenth edition of VoiceMap’s newsletter, Senses of Direction, where we share stories from around the world that spark curiosity and stimulate your senses.

This month, we travel back to Shanghai’s boom at the turn of the millennium when, as one expat put it, “nothing was allowed but everything was possible.” In New York City, we hear about the exuberant Gilded Age and how it’s having its time in the sun again, thanks to the HBO series.

Lastly, we get a taste of life in the town with the world’s most complicated border, where picking your jurisdiction is part of daily life for teenagers and taxpayers alike.

Freelance Job: Audio Tour Script Writer for Cape Town’s Historic Centre

We are looking for a writer to develop the script for an engaging audio walking tour that brings Cape Town’s City Centre to life. The script should capture the authentic energy of its buzzing streets, sharing its history, culture and local insights. The content should appeal to tourists while respecting local perspectives. The narrative voice should be knowledgeable, entertaining, refreshingly honest and genuinely passionate about sharing the city’s secrets.

Orwell, Hunter S, Japan’s microseasons, and a final generation for French wine

Welcome to the fifteenth edition of Senses of Direction, VoiceMap’s newsletter, where we share stories from around the world that spark curiosity and stimulate your senses.

This month, we travel to Bordeaux, where a way of life is declining alongside wine consumption. In Japan, we find out how microseasons with names like ‘evening cicadas singing’ might help us stay connected to the natural world and its rhythms. Lastly, we hear about two very different writers – George Orwell and Hunter S. Thompson – and their very different relationships to place.

Rome’s wolves and river crabs, sonic violence in Korea, plus Mandela’s mark on the world

Welcome to the fourteenth edition of VoiceMap’s newsletter, Senses of Direction, where we share stories from around the world that spark curiosity and stimulate your senses.

This month, we travel to Korea’s Demilitarized Zone to meet the people who live in this strange, liminal space. We also visit Rome’s wild side to find the many types of animals that have made their home in the city’s ruins.

Lastly, we put a spotlight on Nelson Mandela – who would have celebrated his 107th birthday yesterday – and share a smorgasbord of audio tracks about his life, from Stockholm to Madrid.

Inimitable Bourdain, Harvey Milk’s Castro HQ, and a 27-year-long walk home

Welcome to the thirteenth edition of VoiceMap’s newsletter, Senses of Direction, where we share stories from around the world that spark curiosity and stimulate your senses.

Today we remember Anthony Bourdain – the inimitable travel icon who was born and also died in the month of June – as well as ‘The Mayor of Castro Street,’ who would begin speeches with “I’m Harvey Milk, and I’m here to recruit you!”

Finally, there’s a story about a Brit who’s been making his way home on foot to Hull for 27 years, via hair-raising routes including the Bering Strait.

Catching luck in Mumbai, centuries of overtourism in Italy, and remembering George Floyd

Welcome to the twelfth edition of VoiceMap’s newsletter, Senses of Direction, where we share stories from around the world that spark curiosity and stimulate your senses.

Today, we’re sharing a delightful video that explains why Mumbai Local passengers are suddenly excited about buying train tickets. You’ll also find ideas from 18th century Florence for mitigating overtourism today, and a personal perspective on what Minneapolis was like the week George Floyd died, on the anniversary of his death.

Indoor Tours Webinar: Highlights and Insights

VoiceMap has focused almost exclusively on outdoor tours so far. We describe our reasons in more detail below, but they boil down to the fact that GPS playback creates an opportunity to deliver a compelling user experience whether a tour is in Stockholm, San Francisco or Shanghai. But our focus is starting to shift because we see strong demand for indoor tours at museums and art galleries, where GPS doesn’t work.

We hosted a webinar on 23 April 2025 for publishers to explain our understanding of this opportunity and demonstrate how our user interface for indoor tours works. We also gave an overview of how to set up your own indoor tour in Mapmaker.

You’ll find a summary below, along with a new program offering 100% royalties for new indoor tours. There’s also a video recording of the entire webinar.

Metal worms, portraits from Greenland, and hygge’s link to Hans Christian Anderson

Welcome to the eleventh edition of VoiceMap’s newsletter, Senses of Direction, where we share stories from around the world that spark curiosity and stimulate your senses. This week we’ve got a short musing on trains, created by the Mexican filmmaker known as Gawx. You’ll also find out what declining an offer of fresh whale meat from a plastic bag may or may not mean when you’re a foreigner living in Greenland. Lastly, there’s a moving story by Denmark’s favourite fairytale writer, Hans Christian Andersen, tracing the origins of the national concept of hygge.

Upcoming Webinar: Unlock Year-Round Opportunities with Indoor Tours

Join us for a webinar on an opportunity that only 2% of publishers are taking advantage of – indoor tours. We’ll discuss our indoor tour player, which we designed specifically for spaces where GPS playback isn’t possible like museums and galleries, as well as the simpler process of publishing indoor tours using Mapmaker.

While we’ve built our reputation on exceptional outdoor tours – and walking tours in particular – our growing community of loyal users now prioritise VoiceMap experiences when they travel, giving us the perfect opportunity to go indoors.

Only 34 out of 1,648 tours on our platform use our indoor interface at the moment, but indoor tours don’t depend on good weather in the same way as our outdoor tours. They’re also an opportunity to offer tours at some of the world’s most visited attractions. Tours at the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, Rome’s Colosseum, and Lisbon’s Monastery of Jerónimos have already used the indoor player successfully.

Earth’s largest, “god-mad” gathering, London’s endagered cabbies, and pints of DNA

Welcome to the tenth edition of Senses of Direction, VoiceMap’s newsletter, where we share travel-inspired stories that spark curiosity and stimulate your senses.

This week we travel to the banks of the Ganges, where a mind-bending 420 million people took part in the Hindu pilgrimage, Maha Kumbh Mela. We also look back at the history of London’s iconic black cabs, at a moment when their days may be numbered, and return to a pub in Cambridge that serves an ale named ‘Eagle’s DNA’ as a tribute to the pivotal scientific breakthrough that was first announced under its roof.

Land of the (white) lotus eaters, Notre Dame 2.0, and brilliant women hidden in plain sight

Welcome to the ninth edition of VoiceMap’s newsletter, Senses of Direction.

This week, we dive into the crowded waters of Koh Samui, where the ‘White Lotus effect’ has brought a new tide of tourists. We also step inside the gleaming interior of Notre Dame 2.0, with a French YouTuber as our guide. Then, in celebration of International Women’s Day, we’ve got a story about a ‘wild’ woman who shocked 18th century Scotland by riding a sow through Edinburgh, but managed to leave her mark on the world nevertheless.

Play your next tour by ear with VoiceMap Valencia

What comes to mind when you hear the term “audio tour”? Years ago, when we asked this question in a survey, the answer wasn’t a surprise. Audio tours make people think of dusty museums, where grubby devices play dry facts when you push a button.

This misperception might be VoiceMap’s biggest challenge. The fastest way to change it is by getting somebody to listen to the audio from one of our tours. When they hear a voice talking to them – instead of at them – telling a story at ground level instead of 10,000 feet, their eyes light up. I’ve seen it over and over again. Music and sound effects help bring this type of personal storytelling to life, but it’s icing on the cake.

In Version 14 of the app, codenamed Valencia, we’ve added inline audio previews that get you to that moment faster, if you’re new to VoiceMap. If you’re a loyal user who stopped thinking about dusty museums long ago, then Version 14’s inline previews will make choosing your next tour easier. It’ll guide you to the best choice in other ways too, including: