Tips for Designing your own Walking Tour

If you enjoy seeing a place on foot, you have probably paid to take a walking tour somewhere. This is a great way to get to know the streets, architecture and history of a place. Preparing for a trip involves researching a place and a budget, of course. This may leave you wanting to save some cash. There are many ways to do this and not taking guided tours is one of them.

The first thing to do is to survey your landscape. Are you embarking on a rural or an urban tour? If you are in Dublin, for instance, and want to check out the areas and trails outside of the city, take a look at the walking maps available to you. Many countries, including the United States, have great trail maps online and they provide information about using the trails and getting to them from the nearest city.

If you are in a city, maps are even more easily accessible by phone or paper. Decide how long you want to walk for, perhaps it is just an hour in one neighborhood, but maybe you want to spend the whole day on foot and scale a city from one end to another. Wherever you are, decide the length of your walk and research museums, buildings or restaurants in the area and pin them on your preferred map. Curating your own walking tour ensures you see what most interests you. There are numerous apps that can assist you with this process, too; consider using Detour or Geotourist.

Whether you use an app, go old school or try something in between, be sure to leave time for the unexpected.