Key West’s Old Town Treasures: A Self-Guided Audio Tour
Description
See Key West’s top attractions from the Lighthouse to the Little White House at your own pace with this affordable walking tour. • Find out how the town nearly went bankrupt before reinventing itself as ‘The Conch Republic’ in the 1900s • Hear from producer Ed Owen, a seasoned Key West traveller and tour guide • Do it all in 90 minutes or linger at stops along the way with complete control over when you start and finish • Get unlimited use before your booking date and after it • Use the virtual tour option at home • This tour does not enter or include entry to any of the attractions mentioned en route Once you’ve booked, you’ll receive a ticket with instructions and a unique code listed under “Before You Go”. Then simply install the VoiceMap app and enter your code. The app displays directions to the starting point, and when you’re in the right place, just pop in your headphones and tap start. VoiceMap has automatic GPS playback, with turn-by-turn directions. It also works offline.
Tour Options
Itinerary
The first stop on this self-guided audio tour is Mallory Square, home of the daily 'Sunset Celebration'. You'll hear about the sunset celebrations while you continue the tour.
This VoiceMap audio tour passes by the Key West Aquarium. While you walk, you'll hear about its history. Please note the tour does not include entry to the aquarium.
This VoiceMap audio tour passes by the Key West Shipwreck Museum. While you walk, you'll hear about what you can expect from the interactive exhibit space. Please note the tour does not include entry to the museum.
The tour passes by the old Custom House. While you walk, you'll hear about the award-winning museum and official headquarters of the Key West Art & Historical Society that the building now houses.
The tour passes by the Mel Fisher Museum which celebrates the discovery of the Nuestra Señora de Atocha shipwreck. You'll hear about the discovery while you walk.
The tour passes by President Harry Truman's 'Little White House' where he spent 175 days of his presidency. You'll hear about the building while you walk.
The tour passes by Captain Tony’s Saloon. While you walk, you'll hear about the man it's named after, former mayor Tony Tarracino, who was known as 'the conscience of Key West.’
On this tour you'll walk along the longest street in the world, Duval Street, which takes you from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean.
The tour passes by Sloppy Joe’s, the almost 100-year old eatery where Ernest Hemingway went to drink.
The tour passes by The Bull, which contains Key West's only 'clothing optional' lounge, the Garden of Eden.
The tour passes by St Paul's Episcopal Church. You'll hear a bit about the church while you walk.
The tour passes by the tallest building in Key West, La Concha Hotel where Tennessee Williams stayed for ten years.
The tour passes by the original Margaritaville store. You'll hear a bit about the store and its owner while you walk.
The tour takes you to the location of the 'mile marker zero' sign. You'll hear about what it means while you walk.
The tour passes by Ernest Hemingway’s former home where he wrote ‘To Have and Have Not’ about a Key West sea captain.
The tour passes by the Key West Lighthouse. While you walk, you'll learn the 150-year-old Lighthouse was built inland rather than on the coast.
The tour ends at the Southernmost Point of the Continental U.S.A. You'll hear why this location isn't actually the southernmost part of Key West before the tour ends.
Highlights
What's included
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
Reviews(31)
The app, then the tour are easy to download and easy to use. Certainly worth the money. The GPS feature works. I only wish you could take the tour in different order.
Acquiring the download after purchasing was far too many steps. Not only do you have to load a special application, but also it was vague in acquiring the download. Had to contact their help desk to complete the transaction. I am unsure of the content as I never did the audio walking tour.
Shorty at best. Audio was slow to keep up & kept cutting out all together & needed to be restarted. I seemed to have good reception otherwise so I don't know what the issue was. We were so frustrated we shut it off.
At times the directions weren't clear. The audio seemed to end before the tour was completed. Not as good as other audio tours I've used. The website itself was not user friendly.
The audio kept starting over no matter what we did and the map didn’t self adjust if we got off course. We were unable to complete the tour.
Hi Robin, I'm sorry that you were unhappy with your experience. When you were having technical difficulties, did you contact VoiceMap support via email or telephone? We are contactable by both telephone and email, so if you have technical difficulties, please reach out to us so we can identify what is going wrong. Again, I'm sorry about the poor experience you had. Best, Alicia
Great audio tour. Easy to use. Very informative. Make sure your cell phone is charged, as using GPS, taking pictures, and playing the audio can drain a battery quickly.
We thought we would be able to use this, even though it was designed for walking we rented a golf cart, however, being unable to change the route and pick the location you were at to hear the audio made it to where we basically couldn’t use it at all
Hi Christy, As you pointed out, this is a walking tour and advertised as such. We've matched the audio time to the talk time so it isn't possible to do this tour on a golf cart or bicycle and have the same experience. It also follows a set route so that we're able to provide clear and concise directions. Thanks, Alicia
It started raining right when we started the self guided tour. Thankfully we brought ponchos. We just kept going and the weather did not affect us learning about Key West. My husband was thankful for the experience that didn’t leave us stranded in a shop or restaurant waiting for the rain to stop. We added a few stops on the way. We didn’t tour inside any of the stops but still enjoyed it.
GPS enabled walking tour was good as long as you're going the right way. There is a a default that says you went the wrong way but there were many times we felt we didn't know which way to go. Especially when the tour guide was not talking. Overall, it was good to have some structure rather than walking around aimlessly, but could have offered more detailed about everything not just a landmark then walk more.
This was a decent audio tour. It was well narrated, and the narrator had a pleasant voice and demeanor to listen too. There was good info about the history and local points of interest of Key West, though ultimately I felt like it needed to present more information/history. Overall, it felt a little light on overall information for an audio tour. You have to download an app if you don’t already have it, and then download the specific tour that you ordered. They email you a download code for the tour. This was a mostly painless process, except for the very slow wifi at our Airbnb. Navigating wasn’t too difficult. However, there were a few instances where either I missed the audio directions given to walk to the next point, or the instructions weren’t clear. Going into the app, they have a map with the route, but it is grayed out and disabled while the audio tour is running. You can tap to access the map to see where you are supposed to go, but the app warns you that activating the app may mess up the automatic tracking of the audio tour that triggers the recordings. Ultimately, I had to access the map once to see where we were supposed to go. The app needs a way to view the map/route without affecting its playback. We decided to paise the tour halfway through to get some lunch and get out of the hot afternoon stop. It was a bit tricky to get the tour to restart. I don’t remember exactly what I did, but it took several minutes of fiddling with the app to get it to start playing the tour again. The actual route was pretty straightforward and sensible. You weren’t backtracking all over the place. You start near Mallory Square, and finish at the southernmost point buoy.
