Originally built in 1841 and it was modeled after the Temple of the Wingless Victory in Athens, Greece, the Charleston City Market is a must see. And great place to find a bite to eat. Here you'll discover the City Market and hear the story of the confederate museum. We will not go in. If you take the tour between 9:30am and 5pm you can walk through the Charleston City Market.
We will stop by the entrance and hear the story of the Powder magazine, one of the oldest buildings in Charleston. The tour does not go in but you can pause the tour and enter.
We will stop outside the church. We will not enter. You'll hear the story of the church. and it's history. Also we will stop by the Pirate house a few doors down and discover the history of pirates in Charleston.
We wills top by the church but not go in. You'll hear the story of their persecution in France and how they fled to the new world.
We will stop by and hear it's story. Way back on February 12th, 1736 the original Dock Street Theater opened. And it was the first building in America built exclusively for theatrical performances.
This old house was a pirate tavern, a law firm and now a gallery. And some say it's haunted. We will stop by the outside and hear it's story.
Unfortunately Charleston has quite the history in the slave trade. This building once held a slave auction house. We stop by the front and hear it's story but do not enter.
It's a beautiful alley with a long history. And it's off the beaten path not often discovered by tourists. We will walk through Philadelphia alley and hear it's history and the history of why they call it the Duelers alley.
We will pass Lodge Alley, the oldest street in Charleston, and then walk down Vendue Range to the park.
The waterfront was once a place no one visited. Today it's a hot spot for toursits and locals. We will enter the park, see echo rock and walk to the Pineapple fountain. Along the way you'll hear the parks history.
This iconic fountain is a. must see. And you'll learn why pineapples are so important in the Holy City. Tour ends here.
Great option for seeing the sights at our own pace! The directions were super clear of where to go and when. The narration was well done and humorous with options to go deeper at various stops.
Very well narrated and nicely paced. We were trying out these tours so that we weren’t obligated to move at a tour’s pace in extreme heat. This was exactly perfect for us! We stopped where we wanted, when we wanted. We’ve just bought the other two tours for Charleston and look forward to each one.
Great for a stroll around the French quarter at your own pace. Just under an hour so perfect if you don’t have a lot of time or you want to squeeze something in between other planned events.
Lots os walking on uneven surfaces / sometimes directions were confusing / but good information overall
The directions for downloading the separate app should be on the description BEFORE purchasing. Loved the ability to stop, discuss, pause and go at our pace.
Super Informative. Karen did a fantastic job pointing out historic homes and movie locations. Town is very charming ..
I like the concept of a self-guided tour and it was well paced. The historical information was superficial and the background noises were distracting. The exaggerated southern accent was unnecessary.
I lived the flexibility of this self guided tour. The locations were accurate and the dig deeper option was really useful. I’ll always look for these type of self guided audio tours from now on. Especially when I’m travelling solo
The app you need to install is very tied to your location, if you want to stand 20 feet away in the shade while listening, it won't let you. Most of the time. It's hit or miss. It's not very user friendly, and the tour gave about 30 seconds of information per stop. After battling with it for 15 minutes, we gave up and read plaques instead. Glad it was cheap.
Great overview of the French quarter. Lots of information but not too much. Well paced. We liked being able to stop and go deeper or press the “dig deeper button” where things were of more interest.
This was the best little tour for our little family. Incredibly informative, flexible for longer stops and "deeper digs" into the historical sites. The only thing I would love to see added is Rainbow Row.
After I got past the “Howdy partner “talk, I was able to listen, and really enjoy the history of this tour. Charleston is a beautiful city, and the stories that were told during this tour were extremely interesting and historically based. Great little quick tour of Charleston’s historic & iconic places!
This was a great solo tour- easy city to navigate and so much history. Sunny beautiful day so that helped. Incredible food along the way also.
Great self guided tour . It was a little confusing downloading but we got it . Couple spots where the horn or whistle would repeat so not sure if we missed anything .
My daughter and I came down to Charleston for my birthday. My daughter is 21 and I really didn’t think she was going to enjoy this tour very much but she said it was one of her favorite things that we did while we were here. For both of us, having the freedom to stop and go as we wanted and having the tour recorded where we could rewind it, and we each shared an AirPod made it very engaging for us. we also enjoyed being able to walk at a faster pace how much we were going to eat later that day lol we are planning on coming back and doing the tour again and a slower pace though and when some of the other places are open so we can go into them. we had a kayaking tour booked that we had to make it to so we had to stay on schedule, but this was just an amazing tour definitely in the top things that we did for my birthday that weekend! We did take heed from the other reviews and we made sure everything was downloaded before we left our hotel and everything was seamless. We had no problems at all and I definitely think the self guided tours are the way to go.
Highly recommend for a solo tour. We were really impressed with it. Quite informative. You can go at on pace. We had to stop cause my phone about died about half way thru it. Had to go back to car and charge it up and we went right back to where we stopped tour at and continued
I was unable to access the website for reservation and get the guide. But the gentleman i spoke to refunded my ticket.
Loved the "alleys" & backways. I could go at my own speed. I wouldn't have known where to begin & this was a nice introduction to Charleston. Being new to using my phone & downloads it was so easy! Great time!
Excellent solo tour that was insightful and easy to navigate. It's a bonus that you could put your phone in your pocket and easily get to the next destination!
Real nice to do at your time & pace very informative easy to follow move that you could go into some of the stops to really explore
Enjoyed this tour. Easy to navigate and great history info. Great experience. Would recommend. Sometimes the narrator spoke a little fast but was still clear.
Everything great! I had a slight problem loading the tour. But all good! Beautiful day! Very easy to understand !
These tours are great fun and so easy to use. We’ve now used WalknTours in several cities and highly recommend. The best part is that the tour starts whenever you want it to start. And you can stop along the way and shop or you can hop into a pub and resume the tour when you’re ready. The GPS worked perfectly. Also liked that the tour took us down some alleyways (very safe) that we probably wouldn’t have even noticed on our own. Great value for the money.
Excellent value! The self-guided tour was very easy to follow . The narrator was folksy which some reviewers didn't care for but I thought it was an engaging part of the story telling. Learned great historical context for the French Quarter. I will definitely be doing the other Charleston tour and look for these tours in other cities. As mentioned in another review, definitely recommend downloading the app ahead of time and then downloading the tour when you are in a place with good wifi.
We couldn't get the program to continue to play once we started it. The stops showed up on our cell phone and we could select individual stops, but we expected to start the program, pause it when we wanted, and then continue playing to the next stop when we wanted.
The details and narration are nicely done and gives you the opportunity to stop and start at your own pace. Sadly, the trick we learned too late is that downloading the app when you get there is frustrating. Do it ahead of time where you have good internet connection, read the instructions and spend a little time preparing your phone up front so you’re ready to go. It is good that we can finish it another time because we ran out of time, which is the beauty of this tour.
Should’ve been instructions to download before we left. Impossible to download. We are locals but thought we’d get a more in-depth visit doing it on our own. Took about a half hour to get it to work. unable to get it on my phone so we only had one phone working after paying for two. By the time we got it to work, we went into Bumpa’s, had a cocktail and escaped the heat.
Having lived in .Charleston at one time, I was so appalled at the fake southern accent used during the tour. I certainly think it is a disservice to Charleston.
Tad was excellent! He moved at the perfect pace, spoke loudly for all to hear. Shared interesting and entertaining stories.
I took this tour and I paid $37 for a ghost tour through a different company. I far prefer this tour and learned so much more from it. I wish we would’ve had time to do the ghost tour offered by this company. I may yet contact them and see if I have to be at the starting location to begin it. When we took the ones in Salem, it was cold and raining so we just drove to each location while listening to the tour. And then we went back to our camper and pulled up pictures of the locations on our iPad while listening to it again. Love this company.
Despite the bugs in the software (which have purportedly been fixed), this is a nice self-guided tour. It's a good length, gives the right amount of information so you're not over-loaded and allows for a deeper dive when you want it. I recommend this for an introduction to Charleston's French Quarter.
I will preface my opinion with the fact that this was a last minute day trip with minimal tour group availability to choose from, hence the self guided option fit our needs better. The narration was an obnoxious hillbilly southern accent that made the experience much less enjoyable rather than adding the "local charm" I think they were hoping for. Also every instruction was preceded by an irritating train whistle sound that was unnecessary and also unrelated. There are no trains/railroads in the French quarter. Also maneuvering in the app was not intuitive and the sections often repeated. There were interesting historical points included and we followed the path indicated and suggested stops, but we often had to Google search what the spots actually looked like or more interesting historical information for each point. I'm glad this was only $5, and while that is a fairly nominal charge, I have found other self guided tours (different places and apps) that were better done and more enjoyable in the $5-10 range. Great idea/concept, poorly executed. Charleston is a wonderful city to visit and I hope others find better alternatives to enjoy/learn about it's history.
Enjoyed the walk listening to the history of Charleston. The tone was a bit hokey, and the accent seemed more Texan than Southern, but it was definitely informative. Also, the train whistle was a bit loud and annoying. I’d say a quiet bell tone would do.
It was great to be able to pause and restart. Very detailed directions. Loved the stories and length of the tour was perfect.
This was a great tour! My husband and I used one phone and each used one Bluetooth earbud. Being able to pause the tour so we could go into a church or stop to get a bite to eat and then resume the tour was awesome! We didn't have to keep up with 10 other people and a guide that we couldn't hear. The app was super easy to use too, and the 'guide' was informative and humorous as well! I hope they have more audio tours of other cities as we will definitely use them. Enjoy!
This was a great way to experience Charleston. The tour is very easy to follow with written directions and verbal cues. 2 slight negatives: the tour does NOT take you back to your starting point...it would be nice if it did. Also, the narrator keeps referring to “you young fellas” on the tour...kind of awkward for a middle age couple LOL.
It was great to go at my pace and to do the dig deeper and also great to go back and listen again. Make sure your battery is fully charged we did not have an issue, but my phone was low to start and I didn't have much left when I finished. my wife was fully charged and she was fine Rick
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