An earmarked guide book, a tattered paper map, a notebook of carefully plotted plans intermixed with hastily scribbled recommendations from locals met along the way. This is the original “self-guided” tour.
These days, however, travelers can do all of this on a smartphone, and there is a growing list of companies offering apps, products and platforms to guide the way. The past decade has seen an elevation of “self-guided” as a distinct category of the experiences travel sector, with innovations in technology ushering in extraordinary creativity in entrepreneurship for self-guided tours of cities, neighborhoods, museums, attractions and much more.
For the third edition of the Arival Guide to Self-Guided Tours and Audio Experiences, we explored the self-guided tour landscape, with consumer and industry research, a series of interviews, and a systematic analysis of more than 70 audio guide and self-guided platforms. The resulting guide is packed with key strategies, best practices & platforms for developing amazing self-guided tours and audio experiences.
Here are a few highlights of the guide, as well as a list of 25+ Self-Guided Tour (SGT) platforms and providers. For more details see the complete Arival Guide to Self-Guided Tours and Audio Experiences, which is available at no cost to Insider Free and Pro Access members, thanks to our leadership sponsor Vox Group and featured sponsors Clio Muse and STQRY.
The Opportunity of Self-Guided: Reaching Non-Tour Takers
For operators, self-guided tours represent an opportunity to extend their potential customer base beyond existing tour takers. A significant percentage of travelers surveyed in the latest Arival consumer research — one in three U.S. travelers and one in five European — did not take an organized tour last year. The top two reasons travelers gave for not taking an organized tour were:
- I prefer to travel independently (41%)
- I don’t like traveling in groups (24%)
Non-tour takers who want an engaging but independent travel experience represent a significant opportunity.
“What you have to remember is there’s an audience out there that likes to do things in a certain way, they don’t want to be part of a group tour,” explains Andrew Lawrence, Managing Director of Vox City, the city tours branch of Vox Group, a leading provider of self-guided tours tech. “Our tagline for years has always been ‘in your own way at your own pace’ and that is what self-guiding is really about.”
The Opportunity of Self-Guided: Keeping Customers Engaged
While many self-guided tours are offered as stand-alone products, over half of operators offer self-guided tours as add-on products, either as a free inclusion or a paid upsell.
“Self-guided tours work very well with operators in different functions, it’s nice to give our customer something a little bit more,” says Lawrence. “Like, ‘hey, you’ve done our walking tour with us, but now we can present you with two or three self-guided routes around a city that are nicely curated and tell the story in the right way that carry on the experience.’”
“It gives you an add-on that people remember you as an operator by,” Lawrence continues, explaining that those customers may come back to you for a similar experience next time they’re in a new city.
The way self-guided technology has developed also makes it easier for operators to keep customers engaged with their brand — for example, by offering self-guided tours in their own branded app.
“From a tech perspective things are changing as well, making it easier to deliver that sort of experience to the customer,” says Lawrence. “Previously it had to be delivered through another other app, where now through SDK technology you can have these self-guided maps and walking tours be delivered through your own app as an operator, so you’re not actually feeling you’re losing somebody out of your own little sort of ecosphere because they’re going to use another app.”
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25+ Self-Guided Tour Platforms
Arival reviewed dozens of SGT platforms (we identified more than 50) and narrowed the list down to the following organizations, each of whom are active in 2025 and offer a range of self-guided tours and experiences.
There are three main categories of self-guided tours represented here:
- Self-guided walking tours
- Self-drive tours
- Gamified tours & scavenger hunts
See the complete Arival Guide to Self-Guided Tours and Audio Experiences for more details on how the list was compiled, what is (and is not) included, and a second list focusing on audio guide technology providers.
The first three “featured listings” are sponsors of this guide. These featured listings do not constitute a recommendation or endorsement by Arival. All listings, whether featured or standard, are included to provide a comprehensive overview of self-guided tour platform providers available in the market. Our goal is to help operators discover and evaluate potential partners that best fit their needs.
Featured Listing: Clio Muse
Clio Muse Tours is a provider of self-guided tours to travelers and platform for companies to create and offer SGTs. Clio Muse Tours is headquartered in Greece.
Featured Listing: STQRY
STQRY is a platform for building SGTs and interactive experiences that improve accessibility and engagement. STQRY is headquartered in the U.S.
Featured Listing: Vox Group
Vox Group is a provider of self-guided tours to travelers (Vox City) and platform for companies to create and offer SGTs (PopGuide). Vox Group is headquartered in Italy.
Standard Listings
- Action Tour Guide: Self-guided driving and walking tours. Headquartered in the U.S.
- Autio: Self-guided driving and walking tours. Headquartered in the U.S.
- City Game: Mobile city games and scavenger hunts. Headquartered in the Netherlands.
- Escape Tours: Gamified self-guided city tours. Headquartered in the Netherlands.
- Geotourist: Self-guided tours for destinations and cultural heritage sites. Headquartered in the U.K.
- Gesso: Self-guided audio tours. Headquartered in the U.S.
- GPSMyCity: Self-guided city walking tours. Headquartered in the U.S.
- GuideAlong: Self-guided drive tours. Headquartered in Canada.
- Identify Travel: Self-guided tour platform for destinations and attractions. Headquartered in Spain.
- Junket: Self-guided tours. Headquartered in the U.S.
- Locatify: Platform for audio tours, games and hunts for tours, destinations and attractions. Headquartered in Iceland.
- LoQuiz: Platform for games, tours, events. Headquartered in Estonia.
- Narratologies: Self-guided city tours through games and scavenger hunts. Headquartered in Greece.
- PlayTours: Self-guided games, scavenger hunts and team-building. Headquartered in Singapore.
- Questo: Gamified self-guided city experiences. Headquartered in Romania.
- Shaka Guide: Self-guided drive tours. Headquartered in the U.S.
- Smart Guide: Audio guided tours for destinations. Headquartered in Czech Republic.
- StoryTourist: Self-guided tours. Headquartered in Sweden.
- Tourific: Self-guided tours. Headquartered in India.
- TravelStorysGPS: Self-guided audio guide platform for tour operators, attractions and destinations. Headquartered in the U.S.
- VoiceMap: Self-guided tours platform for operators and travelers. Headquartered in South Africa.
- Walkn Tours: Self-guided walking tours. Headquartered in the U.S.
- WeGoTrip: Self-guided walking tours. Headquartered in Estonia.
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AI-Led Initiatives
There is a growing category of AI-powered in-destination guides. While still in relatively early stages of development, these platforms, which include iWander, Joaia and Tailbox, enable users to create their own itineraries, listen to audio narrations, and interact with service via chat. Platforms such as Autoura, iWander and Joaia offer virtual guides, or avatars, as part of the user experience and could be used to enhance a guided tour operator experience.
Did we miss anyone? Please let us know if you know an SGT platform or provider that should be on this list!
Learn More about Self-Guided Tours with Arival
Get the complete Arival Guide to Self-Guided Tours and Audio Experiences, including insights on how to develop high quality and engaging self-guided tours, and a second list focused on audio-guiding platforms and providers. This guide is available at no cost to Insider Free and Pro Access members, thanks to our leadership sponsor Vox Group and featured sponsors Clio Muse and STQRY.
Join us also in our upcoming Insider Pro Meetup where Vox Group’s Andrew Lawrence will join us for an in-depth look at the latest trends and strategies in self-guided and audio-guided tours. In this exclusive discussion for Arival Insider Pro Access members, we’ll delve into Arival’s latest report and offer actionable insights to help you create engaging and profitable self-guided experiences.
Finally, consider joining us at Arival 360 | Valencia, where we’ll have a special breakout session exploring how several companies have developed self-guided tours and are using self-guided tour tech in their product offerings successfully.
Become an Insider Pro Access member today and get access to the full library of Arival research, plus many other benefits such as free consulting sessions, special discounts and 20% off in-person events, starting from $179 per year.
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