A city gives up its secrets at walking pace. Book the right two hours.
Which guide takes the back lanes and which one reads a script at the cathedral door. What a food walk feeds you before it stops. Whether the free tour is really free once the hat comes round. Reviews of guided walks in every city worth the shoe leather.
Four walks that tell you what a good guide is worth.
Different cities, different reasons, same standard. What each one costs and what the people who walked it say afterwards.
01EdinburghHarry Potter Magical Guided Walking TourCloses, wynds and the alley the Old Town keeps quiet about, on a street that was painted for it.
02New OrleansNew Orleans Premier Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Walking TourThe French Quarter after dark with somebody who knows which balcony belongs to which story.
03BarcelonaBarcelona Tapas and Wine Experience Small-Group Walking TourA tapas circuit on foot, four counters deep, with the wine poured by the person who chose it.
04DublinDublin Highlights and Hidden Gems Guided Walking TourGeorgian doors, a hidden garden and the pubs that were not built for tourists.
Six kinds of guided walk, and what each one is actually for.
A food walk and a history walk both last three hours and share nothing else. One ends with you full and slightly drunk; the other ends with you understanding why the street bends. Pick the one you came for.
American cities walk better than their reputation suggests.
Boston, Charleston, Savannah, New Orleans and Salem were all laid out before the car and are still best read at three miles an hour. Three kinds of American walk, what each costs a head, and which city does it best.
Eight cities built for feet, and the walk to take in each.
Old streets too narrow for a coach, cobbles that punish a bad shoe, and a story every fifty metres. These are the places where a guided walk beats every other way to spend the morning.
The food walk is the best-value meal in any city.
Four or five counters, someone local ordering, and no menu to negotiate. A good food walk costs less than the same food eaten sitting down and tells you where to go back to for dinner.
The most-walked guided routes anywhere.
Every walking tour we have reviewed →More people put on shoes for these than for anything else on the site, and each one earns the slot for a different reason.
1
Magical London: Harry Potter Guided Walking Tour
Explore London’s Harry Potter filming sites, test your Hogwarts knowledge, and choose a Thames boat ride on this lively guided walk.
From · $20
Read our review →
2
Reykjavik Food Walk – Local Foodie Adventure in Iceland
from $146
3
History and Hauntings of Salem Guided Walking Tour
from $36
4
New Orleans Premier Ghost, Voodoo and Vampire Walking Tour
from $27
5
Amsterdam Anne Frank: Small-Group Walking Tour & Local Guide
from $29
6
Harry Potter Magical Guided Walking Tour
from $19
7
Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry Ticket
from $49
8
Anne Frank’s Story – Guided Walking Tour through Amsterdam
from $39
A walking tour after dark is a different tour entirely.
Gas lamps, closed shutters, a guide with a lantern and a city that has stopped pretending. Ghost walks get the laugh, crime walks get the detail, and a plain night stroll through an old quarter gets the photographs.
Every walk after dark →
What two hours on foot with a guide actually costs.
Every walk on the site, grouped by price. Walking is the cheapest guided thing you can book in almost any city, and the gap between the bands buys you food, entry tickets or a guide to yourself.
The standard two- to three-hour city walk, ghost routes, old-town circuits and every tip-based tour.
Food and drink walks that feed you properly, small-group history routes, and walks bundled with an entry ticket.
A guide to yourself, a full day on foot, or a walk built around a private table.
The free walk is real. The hat at the end is real too.
Tip-based guides work for nothing up front and live on what the group hands over at the last stop. The good ones are as good as anything you pay for; the routine is that you turn up, you walk, and you settle up at the end. Ten to fifteen a head is the going rate in most cities.
- 1Dortmund: BVB Self-Guided Stadium Walkfrom $14
- 2Paris City Center Free Walking Tour (Tip-Based)
- 3Budapest Historical Sightseeing – Free Walking Tour
Cobbles, hills and three hours upright: what a walking tour really asks.
The gating facts are physical, not financial. Two to three hours on your feet, most of it standing still while somebody talks. Cobbles that turn an ankle in the wrong shoe, stairs in every old town worth walking, and weather that happens to you rather than to a coach. If any of that is a problem, the answer is a shorter route, a smaller group or a guide who sets the pace.
Three questions that decide whether a walk is any good.
Every guided walk →
Group size, start time and whether anything is included beyond the talking. Get these three right and a walking tour is the best money you spend all week. Get them wrong and you are the twenty-eighth person at the back straining to hear.
Twelve people, or forty-five
Past roughly fifteen you stop asking questions and start following an umbrella. Small-group walks cost more per head and are the only ones where the guide learns your name.
The same street, three hours apart
An old town at nine in the morning belongs to delivery vans. At nine at night it belongs to the story. Evening walks cover less ground and remember more of it.
A talk, or lunch as well
Food walks that name their stops are usually feeding you a meal. The ones that say "tastings" without a number are usually feeding you a pastry and a coffee.
Three things a walking tour reaches and nothing else does.
A coach gets you to the monument and parks. These three are stairs, cellars and alleys, which is to say they are walks or they are nothing.
The Old-Town Circuit
Medieval street plans were laid out for a cart at most, which is why the good part of almost every old town is closed to traffic and invisible from a tour bus window. An hour of it with someone who can point at a doorway and tell you why it is that shape is worth more than a day of driving past. Expect cobbles, expect steps, and expect the guide to stop in shade rather than in front of the thing they are describing.
- 1Underground Vaults Walking Tour in Edinburgh Old Town★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 8,506 reviews
- 23-Hour Walking Tour of Old Town & Prague Castle★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 5,696 reviews
- 3Old Town Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 5,174 reviews
Jewish Heritage Walks
These walks work at street level because that is where the evidence is: a brass plate in the pavement, a doorway with a mark left by a mezuzah, a courtyard that was a school. Prague, Krakow, Amsterdam and Berlin all run them, usually with a guide who has family in the story. They are quiet walks and the good ones do not soften anything.
- 1Amsterdam Anne Frank: Small-Group Walking Tour & Local Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 12,789 reviews
- 2Anne Frank’s Story – Guided Walking Tour through Amsterdam★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 11,619 reviews
- 3Jewish Quarter Walking Tour with Admission Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,729 reviews
Street Art Walks
A mural has a lifespan of months, so a street-art walk is the one guided route that is genuinely different from one season to the next. Guides tend to be painters themselves and will take you down service alleys you would never turn into alone. Ask before photographing anyone working.
- 1Street Art and Graffiti Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,354 reviews
- 2City Street Art Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 1,051 reviews
- 3Naples Spanish Quarters Walking Tour Street Art, Folklore & Sweet★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 797 reviews
Four walks that will not wait for you to decide.
Most guided walks can be booked from a hotel lobby the night before. These four run on capped groups, timed entry or one departure a day, and they sell out to people who planned further ahead than you.
- 01Amsterdam Anne Frank: Small-Group Walking Tour & Local GuideThe house next door runs on timed entry with a hard cap, and the walking tours that include it are limited by the same slots.
- 02Magical London: Harry Potter Guided Walking TourOne guide, one small group, several departures a day and a queue of people who booked in the spring.
- 03Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry TicketThe castle sells timed entry, so a walk that includes the ticket is limited by the castle calendar rather than the guide.
- 04Doge’s Palace and St Mark’s Basilica Walking TourAccess runs on timed slots, and the secret-itineraries version takes very small numbers indeed.
By city, where the guides are good
By what you want out of it
Five walking cities in one run, and the walk to take in each.
PragueThe newest guided walks on the site.
The rest of the new ones →
Albufeira: Old Town History Walking Tour with Tapas & Wine
Read our review →
Kauai: Allerton Garden Guided Group Walking Tour
Read our review →
Alghero: Historic Center Walking Tour with A Local Guide
Read our review →
Alba: Historic Town Highlights Guided Walking Tour
Read our review →
Alberobello: Walking Tour among Trulli Houses with a Local
Read our review →
Alanya: Sapadere Canyon Walk & Dim Cave with Dim River Lunch
Read our review →
Agra: Street Food Walking Tour, Spice Market, & Tuk-tuk Ride
Read our review →
Adelaide: Guided Ultimate Walking Tour with Drink and Snack
Read our review →
Abu Dhabi: Guided Walking Tour at Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
Read our review →
Acropolis, Parthenon & Athens Old City Heritage Walking Tour
Read our review →
