In 2021, walk · listen · create published A DIY toolkit for digital sound walks. Five years is a long time in locative media. Some of the tools in that survey have closed, some have been absorbed by larger companies, and others still have a website but are no longer realistic options for a new creator. At the same time, several platforms have matured into substantial distribution networks.

The most important change is not a new technical feature. It is the crystallisation of the field into effecively different markets. A sound artist constructing a layered composition needs something different from a museum placing audio beside objects. As do a tourism operator selling a route, or a community collecting local memories. Asking which platform is “best” only makes sense after deciding what kind of experience, audience and relationship with the material you want.

This 2026 survey therefore distinguishes between:

• Sound-first platforms for artistic and experimental work.
• Audio-tour publishers and marketplaces.
• Institutional guide systems for museums, heritage sites and destinations.
• Community mapping and archival platforms.
• Adjacent tools that can be repurposed for walks.
• Self-hosted and custom-built systems.

The short version

If you want a quick starting point, below are strong current options. But, everything depends on your actual needs.

There is no platform whose “reach” automatically produces listeners. A large marketplace can help discovery, but location-specific work still needs local signs, partnerships, press, search visibility, QR codes and repeat promotion. Conversely, a small platform may be entirely sufficient when a museum, festival or school already controls the point of encounter.

“Free” also needs to be separated into at least three questions: is publishing free for the creator, is the individual tour free, and can an unregistered listener complete it without paying or seeing adverts? A platform can answer yes to the first two and no to the third. izi.TRAVEL is now an important example of that distinction.

How the platforms were assessed

The review checked whether each original service still operates, whether new creators can actually publish, what the current delivery model is, and whether there is evidence of sustained use. Evidence came from current platform documentation, public catalogues, app-store histories and ratings, recent projects, user reviews, creator forums and independent comparisons.
If we got something wrong, let us know.

When you look for App Store ratings, exercise caution. A 4.9 score based on two ratings says much less than the same score based on thousands. Company case studies show what is possible, but not how typical that result is. Creator-facing products also tend to have little independent review coverage. Where we found that public evidence is weak, it is reported rather than converted into a confident recommendation.

1. Sound-first platforms

ECHOES

ECHOES remains one of the most accessible ways to make a genuinely locative sound composition. A creator draws geofenced shapes, attaches audio and other media, and controls how sounds queue, overlap and respond as a listener moves. It supports stereo, binaural and ambisonic material, branching, voice groups and offline downloads. The creator tool has a functional free tier, with memberships adding advanced controls. Each walk can be reached through a link or QR code, although on-location listening is centred on the ECHOES app.

Real-world use ranges from student exercises and heritage narration to composed spatial audio and multi-zone sound art. A 2025 academic workflow study used ECHOES to produce sonic extended reality for outdoor place history. Public reception is broadly positive but not frictionless, perhaps also influenced by its long history: the US iOS listing showed 4.2 from 202 ratings when checked, with praise for particular works alongside reports of account, GPS and playback problems. This pattern is common in locative audio: audiences often love the experience when it works, while a small failure in permissions, GPS or downloaded media can stop the walk completely.

Best for: artists, composers, students and small organisations that need flexible triggered audio without building an app.

Reach: an international public catalogue and active apps, but no reliable public total for walks or listeners.

Verdict: still a leading recommendation.

SonicMaps

SonicMaps combines a detailed map editor with a browser-based player. Audio can be triggered, layered, faded, synchronised and organised into narrative or musical systems. Because the player works on the web, the audience does not necessarily need to install a shared catalogue app. Plans currently start at US$12 per month when billed annually, with limits on hosting, public projects and monthly visitors.

Creators cite the uncluttered editor and responsive support as strengths. Composer Pete Stollery (on the SonicMaps homepage) describes it as efficient and notes that user suggestions are taken on board. Its use in projects such as the Zonzo platform, and in university research, shows that it can support work beyond a quick prototype. There is no large independent review pool or public listener total, so satisfaction evidence is encouraging but small and partly supplied by the company.

Best for: layered sound walks, located music, audio games and creators who prefer web delivery.

Reach: project-led rather than marketplace-led; subscription plans set explicit visitor allowances.

Verdict: a strong current sound-first tool.

radio aporee: miniatures for mobiles

radio aporee provides a long-running artistic infrastructure for field recording, sound mapping and works in public space. Its miniatures for mobiles system supports location-based compositions and experimental formats. Creator access is not instant self-service: prospective authors are asked to send a short proposal for an editor login, though but on an ‘About’ page that lists its copyright as 2018. Nevertheless, we’ve found its founder responsive in past communications.

Recent activity includes sound maps and projects made in 2025, while the global sound map continues to receive recordings. Its longevity is a major advantage. The trade-off is an older interface, limited onboarding and a system shaped by an artistic community rather than by mass-market usability or analytics. There is no meaningful app-rating sample or published audience total for individual works.

Best for: field recordists, sound artists, experimental radio and work that benefits from an established artistic context.

Reach: a significant long-term sound archive with international contributors; reach for individual walks is not publicly quantified.

Verdict: active and distinctive, but curated and less beginner-oriented than ECHOES or SonicMaps.

Soundtrails

The 2021 article presented the Creative Sandpit and portable STX files as a new open tool. The Sandpit has been retired, Soundtrails now presents a broader platform, production service and Academy. It hosts GPS-triggered audio walks, teaches creators and organisations, and provides a builder for learning, testing and publishing.

Its strongest body of work is in Australia, particularly community history, rural places and First Nations stories.
Its public catalogue includes sustained local productions, and the platform is used by councils and universities. Satisfaction is high but the public sample is small. The Australian iOS listing showed 4.8 from 17 ratings, while Google Play showed more than 5,000 downloads. Reviews repeatedly praise the connection between carefully produced stories and place.

Best for: community-led, educational and cultural projects that value training and editorial or production support.

Reach: concentrated in Australia; small compared with global tour marketplaces, but supported by a coherent public catalogue and institutional partnerships.

Verdict: active and recommended, especially where process and cultural stewardship matter.

Gesso

Gesso has developed from a promised creator tool into a functioning platform and production studio. Creators can place stops on a map, upload audio and transcripts, test GPS-triggered playback, and publish free or paid tours for iOS, Android and mobile web. The company says that publishing multiple free tours carries no platform fee.

Its catalogue favours well-produced urban stories, cultural institutions and immersive moving plays. It remains geographically smaller than VoiceMap, with visible concentration in New York, San Francisco, London and several Italian cities. Satisfaction evidence is unusually strong for a platform of this size: the US App Store showed 4.9 from 211 ratings, and Google Play showed 4.8 from 57 reviews. Users particularly praise timely GPS playback, interface quality and the depth of selected tours.

Best for: polished narrative walks, cultural projects and independent creators who want free or paid distribution across app and web.

Reach: good engagement in a limited set of cities; public evidence does not suggest VoiceMap-scale global coverage.

Verdict: a strong 2026 recommendation.

Storydive

Storydive combines an audiowalk publishing platform with creative and production support. Its iOS and Android apps deliver stories whose chapters start automatically when listeners reach particular locations, with spoken directions and the option to stream or download walks.

Its authoring tools support interactive narratives and two independently controlled audio tracks. Creators can use an editor to build and test walks, while the team offers help adapting material, finding performers and arranging audio production. Its creator information describes licensing fees, revenue sharing through in-app purchases and access through promotional codes or institutional ticketing. Current charges and creator onboarding arrangements should be confirmed directly.

The catalogue includes literary and experimental work such as Sophie Burger’s 398 Billionen 236 Milliarden 608 Millionen, which invites listeners to imagine Groß Neuendorf from an underwater perspective. The German App Store showed 4.2 from 15 ratings when checked. Reviews praise discovering unfamiliar places and experiencing stories within their settings. The small, largely older review sample cannot establish typical satisfaction in 2026.

Best for: writers, theatres, sound artists and cultural organisations producing immersive fiction and interactive narrative walks.

Reach: documented use across German-speaking locations; current active-listener totals and typical audiences per walk were not established.

Verdict: active and particularly relevant for literary and dramatic audiowalks, with both authoring tools and production support.

Locosonic

Locosonic still operates as a listening app and promotes soundscapes in Vienna and Barcelona. Its Android app was last publicly updated in October 2023. What has changed is creator access. The current public website explains how to download and experience walks but provides no visible self-service editor, pricing page or creator onboarding route.

Our original article recommended Locosonic as an open creator platform. But although the website remains current, there is little independent evidence of recent creator use or broad catalogue growth to consider it as a dependable DIY recommendation. The app is still listed on Google Play, but no longer on iOS.

Evidence points to the platform no longer being available.

Verdict: Seemingly retired.

2. Audio-tour platforms and marketplaces

VoiceMap

VoiceMap is a clear option for a creator whose priorities are distribution, editorial support and sales. Its Mapmaker helps align spoken duration with route timing, and tours can use automatic GPS playback while remaining available offline. Creators can sell tours, distribute voucher codes or, on selected plans, make tours free. VoiceMap currently pays 50 per cent royalties on direct tour sales and offers higher-cost plans for free-download credits and priority support.

This is the platform in this survey with the strongest demonstrated consumer reach. VoiceMap reports that its apps have been downloaded millions of times. Its catalogue covers more than 600 destinations, and an independent 2026 comparison counted more than 2,000 tours in 68 countries. App reviews frequently praise the freedom to stop, restart and walk at one’s own pace. Creator reports are more measured: contributors say earnings can build over time in popular destinations, but are rarely immediate or large without sustained promotion.

VoiceMap is more editorially structured than an instant pin-and-publish tool. That can improve route logic and production quality, but it also means that experimental work which resists a clear route or spoken-guide format may fit poorly.

Best for: professional narrative tours, local experts, journalists, guides and creators seeking marketplace sales.

Reach: the strongest evidenced reach among creator-facing platforms in this review.

Verdict: probably the leading distribution-oriented choice.

guidemate

guidemate remains free to enter, straightforward to publish with, suitable to sightseeing, artistic audio walks and educational work. Tours can be heard through its apps, downloaded for offline use, or explored through the website. Free and paid walks sit in the same catalogue.

Its current public statistics show real scale without suggesting mass-market dominance: 592 tours, 10,550 stations, 296 cities and 28 countries. The app received several updates in 2024, 2025 and January 2026. The US App Store does not have enough ratings to show a summary, so reach is better evidenced by the catalogue than by consumer review volume. The platform is particularly strong in Germany and in university and arts use.

Best for: low-budget artistic, educational and city walks, especially in Europe.

Reach: medium-sized, with a pronounced German and European centre of gravity.

Verdict: active, useful and still recommended.

izi.TRAVEL

izi.TRAVEL has grown substantially since 2021. Its current app description reports 25,000 tours across 2,500 cities in 137 countries, in more than 50 languages, with more than 3,000 museums using it as an official guide. Publishing a free tour remains free; paid tours can be sold with 50 per cent of sales proceeds paid to the producer after taxes.

That does not make the experience free or frictionless for the audience. In a listener test conducted for this review on 3 September 2026, an unregistered user could play three audio items. Continuing then required registration and a choice between paying or watching video adverts. izi.TRAVEL’s own FAQ confirms that the service uses subscriptions and advertising. It charges publishers €100 for three months or €360 for twelve months to suppress adverts on a tour, even though another answer on the same page says users can listen to a creator-designated free tour “without charge”. The FAQ does not disclose the three-item threshold. Projects should therefore test the complete current listener journey on both Android and iOS before adopting the platform.

A recent creator review describes the system as flexible for production and backed by responsive support. The counterpoint is structural: a creator publishes inside a very large shared marketplace with limited brand control and a great deal of competing content. A museum-technology comparison also criticises its basic analytics and dependence on app adoption. The newly verified playback restrictions add a more immediate concern: registration, adverts and possible payment can interrupt a walk after it has begun.

Best for: museums, heritage routes and multilingual tours that value marketplace reach and can accept listener registration, adverts or the cost of ad-free playback.

Reach: very large and international.

Verdict: active and high-reach, with free creator publishing, but not recommended where a genuinely free, uninterrupted listener experience is essential.

YourAudioTour

YourAudioTour emphasises simplicity and app-free access. Tours are mobile websites reached through a link or QR code. Creators can upload audio, use text-to-speech, attach a map, offer offline access, charge listeners and create a separate QR code for every stop. One tour with up to five stops is free; larger and branded plans are paid.

The company says it is used by hundreds of organisations. Testimonials from small museums and art walks consistently praise ease of setup, flexible QR access and responsive support. A 2026 competitor comparison reaches a similar conclusion, while criticising limited multilingual and accessibility support and higher commissions for paid content. Those criticisms come from a competitor and should be weighted accordingly, but they identify sensible questions to test during a trial.

Best for: small museums, exhibitions, art walks and routes whose visitors should not have to install an app.

Reach: delivery is usually driven by the creator’s own venue or promotion, not by marketplace discovery.

Verdict: a practical, low-complexity option.

Locatify

Locatify now clearly separates shared-app audio guides, web tours, branded apps and gamified products. Its SmartGuide shared-app plan starts at €29 per month, web tours at €79 per month, and branded apps at €350 per month. It supports GPS, indoor beacons, offline content, multiple languages, quizzes and scavenger-hunt elements.

Its typical users are museums, tourism bodies, municipalities, schools, and team-building providers rather than individual sound artists. Public evidence includes dozens of case studies. A G2 user describes creating and publishing indoor and outdoor audio guides as easy, although the pool of independent software reviews is small.

Best for: organisations combining interpretation, tourism and game mechanics, including indoor and outdoor experiences.

Reach: project and client based. A shared app offers some discovery, while branded products depend on the organisation’s own audience.

Verdict: active and capable, but increasingly an institutional service rather than a free creative commons.

GuidiGO

GuidiGO remains active and is now part of STQRY. Its browser editor supports audio, images, video, indoor maps, GPS, beacons, games and augmented reality. More than 1,000 tours and games have been created on the platform. Public apps remain available, but there is little recent independent review activity and pricing is on the high end, with the lowest tier at $75 per month.

Best for: cultural organisations and educational projects wanting multimedia, indoor positioning or AR.

Reach: more than 1,000 published experiences, with limited evidence of aggregate listener volume.

Verdict: active, but compare the current contract and support model with other providers.

GPSmyCity

GPSmyCity remains a large walking-tour and travel-article service, with content in more than 1,800 cities. It invites writers to contribute itineraries and articles and allows users to assemble custom walks. Recent user reviews praise offline navigation, destination coverage and the ability to modify routes.

Its premise, however, is somewhat different from the other platforms in this list. Its central form is the mapped article and sightseeing itinerary, not authored, layered or automatically triggered sound. Audio is a consumer convenience rather than a compositional environment.

Best for: travel writers and creators of practical sightseeing itineraries.

Reach: large consumer travel catalogue.

Verdict: active, but only tangentially relevant to sound walks.

Geotourist

Geotourist was not in our original list, even though it predates the original article. It allows individuals and organisations to build GPS-linked audio tours, add images, publish in multiple languages and share through its app. Tours are available in more than 40 languages. Independent coverage confirms that individual creators, not only institutions, can use its guided upload process.

Its strength is an open publishing model. Its weakness is limited transparency about current pricing, total audience and creator satisfaction. Public tour URLs show an active catalogue, but there is no robust independent review base.

Best for: creators seeking a shared audio-tour app with multilingual publishing.

Reach: international catalogue, not publicly quantified in a reliable way.

Verdict: worth testing, with support and pricing confirmed before production.

3. Institutional platforms

Take a look at the following options when you represent a museum, university, heritage site, municipality, or tourism organisation. These are generally less suitable for an unfunded individual artist, and were also not covered in our overview from 2021.

STQRY and PocketSights

STQRY has consolidated a group of visitor-experience products, including PocketSights and GuideGo. It provides app and mobile-web tours, maps, audio, video, quizzes, AR, beacons, geofencing, payments and analytics. Case studies include Yale, Museum Victoria, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and public-land agencies.

Institutional users praise the ability to update content and launch tours without app-development skills. A 2026 comparison describes parts of the builder as confusing or clunky and notes that several advanced features cost extra. The source is a competitor, so these criticisms should be verified during a trial. PocketSights’ former identity as a relatively simple walking-tour builder should therefore not obscure its current position inside a broader commercial suite.

Best for: museums, campuses, cultural sites and public agencies needing a supported, branded visitor system.

Reach: strong institutional client base; audience figures are usually reported per project rather than for one shared catalogue.

SmartGuide

SmartGuide reports 6,000 local guides, 10,000 audio tours, 100,000 points of interest and more than 1.5 million travellers. Creators can build a guide in its CMS, while paid organisational packages add private branding, offline use, notifications, analytics and AI-assisted translation or planning. Tour-operator packages start at €98 per month for fewer than 3,000 annual passengers.

The reach is substantial, but content quality varies. An independent 2025 review found the product useful while wanting better coverage and discovery. App-store criticism is sharper, particularly where users encountered short, generic or synthetic narration and weak navigation. These are content problems as much as platform problems, and they illustrate why automatic translation and text-to-speech do not replace editing, field testing and situated knowledge.

Best for: tourism organisations, attractions and multilingual guide programmes.

Reach: large, according to platform figures.

Bloomberg Connects

Bloomberg Connects is free for eligible nonprofit cultural organisations. An industry comparison reports digital guides from more than 1,100 museums and cultural sites. It is not an open platform for individual artists, and it is oriented primarily toward museums rather than outdoor GPS composition. Within that boundary, it would be a significant omission from any 2026 institutional survey.

Treat it as a museum guide system, targeted at larger clients, that can carry audio, not as a general-purpose sound-walk authoring environment.

Best for: eligible nonprofit museums and cultural organisations.

Reach: large shared cultural audience and more than 1,100 participating institutions.

Driftscape

Driftscape is a Canadian destination platform combining maps, autoplay audio tours, itineraries, AR, rewards, local-business listings and analytics. Annual plans currently begin at C$2,983 for up to 50,000 annual visitors. The company publishes unusually concrete project results, including thousands of point-of-interest views and campaigns with tens of thousands of visits.

The model suits towns, tourism regions and organisations managing many places. It is over-specified and expensive for a single independent sound walk, but could be useful when audio is one part of a larger local discovery system.

Best for: destination organisations, municipalities and regional cultural networks.

Reach: credible project-level audience figures, primarily in Canada.

Open Audio Tours

Open Audio Tours is a newer platform for GPS, QR and NFC-triggered audio. Plans begin at about US$10 per month for five sites, and native apps are available. A Helena, Montana history tour demonstrates a sustained real-world use case, including hands-free playback while walking or driving.

The platform is actively developed, but reach remains small. Google Play showed only 100-plus downloads and the US App Store showed two ratings when checked. It deserves inclusion as a current option, but not yet the confidence attached to platforms with larger bodies of work.

Best for: small organisations wanting inexpensive, hands-free site narration.

Reach: currently limited.

Other systems to watch

Tourient, MySmartJourney and StoryHunt are active and relevant. Tourient is a newer institution-focused audio-guide builder with web delivery, analytics and branding. MySmartJourney specialises in QR, NFC and short-link visitor journeys. StoryHunt combines audio walks, paid tours and a public discovery app. All may suit particular commissions, but independent creator evidence remains thinner than for the main recommendations above. Trial them with a real route and a small audience before signing a long contract.

4. Community mapping, archives and collective authorship

Placecloud

Placecloud maps short audio stories called “viewpoints”, connecting history, research and personal perspectives to specific places. Listeners can explore through a map and Google Street View, while registered users can contribute viewpoints, follow creators and assemble collections. Contributions are open to everyone, with greater visibility given to recognised experts. walk · listen · create took responsibility for the platform in 2023.

Its emphasis is on individual places and thematic collections, making it useful for publishing research beyond an academic setting or assembling an audio archive of local knowledge. Featured collections include Elizabeth Norton’s Henry VIII’s Lost Palaces, John Price’s The Everyday Heroes of Postman’s Park, and my own Sins Beneath the Equator.

Placecloud manages an iOS app, and pushes its content to Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts.

Best for: researchers, writers, artists and community projects publishing place-specific stories and thematic audio collections.

Verdict: active and relevant for mapped storytelling and collective archives, particularly where individual locations are the organising principle.

CGeomap

CGeomap remains active as an audiovisual map editor and web app. It can trigger audio and other media by GPS or QR code, connect entries across layered maps, and allow desktop exploration. Current European projects use it for ecological documentation and youth-led mapping.

Its model remains service-led: projects are often configured through workshops, training and support rather than through a mass-market subscription checkout. That makes it attractive for collaborative and method-led work. There is little independent review data and no public platform-wide audience figure.

Best for: collaborative mapping, locative literature, ecological work and projects developed through workshops.

Verdict: active, specialised and still relevant.

Overhear

Overhear connects poetry, stories and oral histories to physical locations. Listeners discover and collect recordings through GPS proximity or QR codes. Its documented features include sequential and branching narratives. The emphasis is on unlocking audio at particular places; this should not be assumed to provide the continuous mixing and crossfading offered by sound-composition tools.

Creators can record audio, pin it to their location and organise public or private projects. Projects can also accept moderated contributions and spoken or written responses, making Overhear relevant to workshops and collective storytelling. The company offers project support through an enquiry process; this review has not established a standard publishing price.

Documented use predates the original toolkit: in 2020, Boundary Way Allotments and Community Garden added three commissioned poems inspired by its site. A UK App Store review from August 2020 describes how local poets’ recordings enriched a Birmingham walking tour. The same listing shows continuing app development, but its five-star rating rests on only three ratings, too few to establish typical satisfaction.

Best for: poetry trails, literary festivals, community oral histories and participatory audio projects.

Reach: documented UK cultural and community projects; reliable active-listener totals and typical audiences per project were not established.

Verdict: active and relevant for collective, place-based audio storytelling, with creator features and supported project development.

Roundware

Roundware remains an open-source framework for collecting, filtering and replaying location-based audio. It is particularly suited to participant contribution and evolving sound environments, where the audience also becomes a source. Its server code received updates in 2025, so it can not be labelled abandoned.

It is not a turnkey creator platform. A project needs technical setup, hosting and interface decisions, and some mobile repositories are older than the server. Public use has historically been art, education and documentary projects rather than a shared consumer marketplace.

Best for: participatory audio archives and custom contributory installations with technical support.

Verdict: active open source, not beginner DIY.

Historypin

Historypin remains an active web platform for community memory, mapped photographs, audio and video. Its strength is collaborative local history, collections and projects that connect archival material to place. It now offers paid support and custom project work.

Historypin’s native mobile app was withdrawn in 2015. The web platform survived and is still useful, but our 2021 description of the smartphone application was already out of date. A recent educational review continues to value its ability to bring family and community stories together.

Best for: community archives, local-history collecting and mapped memory.

Verdict: active web platform, not a GPS-triggered sound-walk player.

Clio

Not in our original list of platforms, Clio is a free, nonprofit platform for public history in the United States. Individuals, students and organisations can create place entries, link them into walking tours or larger heritage trails, add media and directions, and make tours available in place or remotely. It is a structured historical publishing environment rather than a tool for layered or automatic audio.

Its strongest real-world use is in classrooms, historical societies and community heritage. Public historians report that publication gives student work an audience and encourages engagement beyond a conventional paper. App reviews praise the tour builder and the discovery of overlooked history, while also describing the interface as dated. All entries use a Creative Commons licence, which is an advantage for public knowledge but a condition that creators must accept.

Best for: free US public-history and educational walks with text, images and audio.

Reach: a substantial nationwide archive, although the platform does not publish a clear current total for tours or active listeners.

Verdict: active and useful within its US public-history remit.

Curatescape

Curatescape remains actively maintained as a location-based publishing framework built on Omeka. It is used by historical organisations, universities and public-history projects such as Cleveland Historical. The open-source code is free. Full-service setup currently begins at US$8,000, with annual charges for apps or managed hosting. A new web theme was released in 2024.

Its value is ownership of a branded, durable public-history resource rather than rapid creation of one sound walk. There is little aggregate user-review data because each deployment has its own audience and identity.

Best for: institutions building a long-term place-based archive and tour programme.

Verdict: active and durable, but a framework and service rather than a casual app.

PlacePress

PlacePress has moved well beyond the beta from 2021. The WordPress plugin supports location posts, tours, global maps and geolocated multimedia. Its public code shows continuing compatibility work through recent WordPress releases.

It does not provide automatic GPS-triggered audio in the manner of ECHOES or VoiceMap. Its advantage is that creators can publish and retain content inside their own WordPress installation, integrate it with an existing archive, and avoid a separate catalogue. Reach depends entirely on the host site.

Best for: WordPress publishers wanting owned maps, place records and virtual tours.

Verdict: active and improved, but still a locative publishing tool rather than a sound engine.

ojoVoz

ojoVoz still has a public website and downloadable open-source code for collaboratively collecting photographs, sound, tags and location. There is, however, little evidence of recent mobile releases, maintenance or new public projects. Its Android-first architecture also makes it difficult to recommend for a new mixed-device public audience.

Best for: researchers able to self-host and maintain an existing ojoVoz workflow.

Verdict: legacy open source, feels retired. Do not begin a new public project without first testing the full installation and mobile contribution process.

5. Repurposed, virtual and game-based tools

The platforms in this list are grouped

Ramblr remains a popular outdoor activity recorder. It combines GPS tracks with photographs, video, notes and statistics. Its Android listing showed 4.4 from about 11,000 reviews, while iOS showed 4.6 from 162 ratings. Long-term users praise its stability, offline tracking and record of past trips. It still cannot function as a true triggered audio walk, but remains useful for documentation, route scouting and sharing a traced journey.

Avenza Maps also remains active and is now positioned strongly toward offline professional field work. It can import GeoPDF, GeoTIFF, KML, GPX and other data, record tracks, collect attributes and create geofences. It is useful in research and production, not as the final listening platform. Commercial, government and academic use requires a Pro licence.

Verdict: both remain useful production and field-note tools; neither belongs among the main sound-walk players.

Actionbound and Loquiz deserve inclusion in 2026 because many sound walks now combine listening with instructions, questions, codes and participant media.

Actionbound is free for personal, non-commercial use and has paid education and business licences. Its “Bounds” can use GPS, QR codes, audio, quizzes and uploaded responses. It is widely used for school trips, museum activities and urban games. Loquiz offers more elaborate game logic, ticketing and per-player commercial models for tour operators and event producers. Reviews tend to value its flexibility while finding its video and setup documentation uneven; Trustpilot showed a middling 3.3 when checked, from a small sample.

Best for: participatory walks, treasure hunts, education and work in which tasks are as important as listening.

Verdict: strong adjacent tools, not sound-composition platforms.

Google Earth still allows creators to build collaborative place stories with text, photographs, video and 3D imagery. It is useful for remote exploration, teaching and presenting a journey on a global map. It remains awkward for audio-first work and does not reproduce the embodied timing of a physical walk.

Both Google Tour Creator and Google Tour Builder were closed in 2021. Tour Builder links stopped working and its data was deleted after 15 July 2021 unless users exported it. The active successor is Google Earth Projects, not a revived version of either retired service.

Verdict: active for virtual geographic stories; the two Tour products are retired.

Lapentor remains active for browser-based 360-degree virtual tours. It supports hotspots, audio and video, and currently offers three projects with up to 15 panoramas each on its free plan. Premium costs US$25 per month, while a project can be downloaded for self-hosting for US$10. Software reviews generally praise its fast, accessible editor.

Paneek also remains online, now presenting its creator as DiveIn Studio. It allows 360-degree scenes with multimedia hotspots. Public review evidence is limited, and the product is more clearly aimed at property, education and visual tourism than at sonic walking.

Verdict: useful for remote visual tours with sound, not substitutes for an on-location sound walk.

6. Build it yourself

ARIS

ARIS is still online and its code remains available under the MIT licence, but Field Day Lab states clearly that it is no longer supported. Existing projects may continue to work, and its combination of GPS, QR codes, beacons, image recognition and media collection remains instructive. It should not be chosen as hosted infrastructure for a new public work.

Verdict: retired as a supported platform; preserve or fork only with the technical capacity to own the system.

MapNav

MapNav remains available as a Unity geolocation engine for developers. It supports maps, navigation and located 2D or 3D objects. This is a software component, not an authoring and publishing service. A creator must still build, test, distribute and maintain the complete app, and must account separately for Unity, mapping and app-store requirements.

Verdict: active developer toolkit for custom work.

A small custom web app

Building a locative audio experience has become technically easier since 2021. A progressive web app can deliver a map, downloaded audio, QR-linked stops and basic GPS proximity logic without an app store. OpenStreetMap and Leaflet can provide the map, while ordinary web hosting can store the media. More advanced background location, reliable automatic playback on iOS, Bluetooth beacons and offline asset management remain difficult.

The attraction is control: design, analytics, accessibility, hosting and data policy can be chosen for the project. The cost is ongoing responsibility. Browser and operating-system changes can break location permissions or audio playback. A custom system therefore needs an explicit maintenance budget, an exportable content model, device testing and a fallback such as a numbered stop list.

What happened to every platform in the 2021 article?

2021 platform	2026 status	What changed
ECHOES	Active, recommended	Mature free and paid creator system; continued international artistic use.
Locosonic	Seemingly retired	Public DIY editor and pricing are no longer visible.
SonicMaps	Active, recommended	Web player, expanded audio logic and current subscriptions.
radio aporee	Active, curated	Long-running artistic platform; editor access by proposal.
Soundtrails Creative Sandpit	Product name retired; Soundtrails active	Replaced by a broader Builder, Academy, production and publishing model.
Gesso Creator Tool	Active, recommended	Creator publishing now supports free and paid tours across app and web.
guidemate	Active, recommended	592 tours and current apps; particularly strong in Germany and Europe.
VoiceMap	Active, recommended	Major marketplace with millions of app downloads and more than 600 destinations.
YourAudioTour	Active	App-free web tours, QR delivery and paid plans.
Locatify	Active	Clearer institutional product tiers for shared app, web and branded apps.
GuidiGO	Active	Now part of OnCell; more than 1,000 tours and games.
GPSMyCity	Active, weak sound-walk fit	Large sightseeing and itinerary platform, not a sound-first builder.
izi.TRAVEL	Active, with listener-access caveat	Free creator publishing and very large reach, but a September 2026 test encountered a three-item limit followed by registration and payment or video adverts.
CGeomap	Active, specialised	Continues through supported collaborative and European projects.
Roundware	Active open source	Server development continues; still requires technical implementation.
ojoVoz	Legacy	Site and code remain, but recent maintenance and public-device support are unclear.
Historypin	Active web, app retired	Native apps were withdrawn in 2015; web community archive continues.
Curatescape	Active	Maintained Omeka framework with current service plans and themes.
PlacePress	Active	WordPress plugin has progressed far beyond beta and receives compatibility updates.
Ramblr	Active	Well-used route recorder and field-note tool, still not true locative audio.
ViewRanger	Retired	App and website were switched off in February 2022 after merging into Outdooractive.
Avenza Maps	Active	Stronger professional and offline field-mapping focus.
Placecloud	Active, curated	Web and iOS access; focused on short expert location podcasts.
Google Tour Creator	Retired	Closed in 2021.
Google Tour Builder	Retired	Closed 15 July 2021; Google Earth Projects is the successor.
Google Earth for Web	Active	Useful for virtual map stories, but still not sound-first.
Lapentor	Active	Free and paid 360-tour creation with audio-capable hotspots.
Paneek	Active as DiveIn Studio	360 virtual tours; little independent evidence and limited sound-walk relevance.
ARIS	Unsupported	Code remains, but Field Day Lab no longer supports the platform.
MapNav	Active developer tool	Unity component for custom apps, not a hosted creator platform.

The 2021 article also mentioned noTours as already discontinued. Its historical and open-source importance remains, but it is not a current service.

Choosing a platform in 2026

Before making a decision, test the complete visitor journey rather than only the editor.

1. Decide what is the role of ‘location’. Does GPS merely reveal a stop, or does movement mix, interrupt or transform sound? Conventional tour systems handle the first. Sound-first systems are needed for the second.
2. Developing for a specific location? Test access at the actual site. Check mobile signal, GPS drift, background playback, battery use, road safety, and what happens when a listener walks the route backwards.
3. Minimise arrival friction. Every required account, app download, permission and code loses part of the audience. An app can still be worthwhile when it provides reliable offline playback or sophisticated triggering.
4. Check audio behaviour, not just media support. “Supports audio” may mean a play button beside a museum object. It does not necessarily mean geofencing, overlap, fading, queueing or uninterrupted screen-off playback.
5. Take accessibility into account. Provide transcripts, route distance and terrain, a remote listening mode, alternatives to headphone-only instructions, and a way to use the work without precise GPS. Test screen-reader and text-size behaviour.
6. When relevant, interrogate reach claims. Ask for active users in the relevant city or category, not total registrations. For a venue-led project, QR scans and completion rates may matter more than marketplace size.
7. Clarify ownership and exit. Can you export audio, text, images, coordinates and analytics? What happens when a subscription ends? Can an existing published walk be moved elsewhere?
8. Budget for maintenance. Street layouts, operating systems, permissions, URLs and institutions change. A permanent digital walk needs periodic field tests and a named person responsible for repairs.
9. Separate platform cost from production cost. Research, rights, translation, recording, editing, sound design, accessibility, signage and promotion usually cost more than the authoring tool.

A final caution about “DIY”

Most platforms make publishing technically easy. They do not make a sound walk good. The difficult work still lies in listening to the site, understanding how bodies move through it, negotiating whose stories are being located there, recording and mixing for outdoor conditions, and testing how the work behaves when the city refuses to follow the route imagined on screen.

The most suitable platform is therefore not necessarily the one with the longest feature list. It is the one whose assumptions about sequence, movement, authorship, access and ownership fit the work you are trying to make.

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Disclosure

As in the 2021 article, some listed platforms have relationships with us at walk · listen · create. ECHOES and Soundtrails have been active participants in our activities; ECHOES is a current sponsor; members of the walk · listen · create team are involved with CGeomap and Placecloud. We cultivate relations with GuideMate, StoryDive, and Overhear. Direct familiarity can improve a review while also creating potential bias.
Platform statistics in this article are attributed to their sources, and weak or absent independent evidence is identified where possible.