App founders team up with BBC journalists and Irish storytellers to offer expert guide to Europe’s best cities
Bar the occasional selfie, sightseeing is an industry that hasn’t been hugely influenced by the mobile revolution. AudioTrip, an app which offers immersive audio guides produced by local storytellers, today aims to change that with the ‘Ultimate Guide to Europe’, a collection of personalised tours from some of Europe’s greatest storytellers, for the 24 best travel destinations in Europe.
AudioTrip is a fully-functional mobile app (available for free on iOS and Android) that uses the power of your smartphone to put a personal, local guide in your hand. The app features audio guided routes around cities, submitted by professional guides and well-informed locals alike. Each tour is brought to life by audio descriptions, photos, and embedded videos. The handset uses GPS – no data usage, so no roaming charges – to pinpoint your location on a route, and then cues up information on points of interest along the way.
To truly reveal AudioTrip’s full potential, however, a Kickstarter campaign is being launched today to create the ‘Ultimate Guide to Europe’. This involves the founders of AudioTrip partnering with 25 local experts from 24 of the continent’s best travel locations, and getting them to share their stories on AudioTrip.
These are superbly informed storytellers with decades of pedigree, ranging from a bardic storyteller with an expert knowledge of Dublin’s myths and folk tales, to an award-winning BBC broadcaster, and a preeminent author of Barcelona guide books.
The Kickstarter seeks to raise £30,000, to be used for recordings, translations, photography, and geolocation and mapping tests. This campaign offers major savings for travellers – a single mobile guide can often cost upwards of £5, whereas AudioTrip backers would get at least 25 expertly-produced guides for just £8.
“We’re incredibly excited to be able to share our vision of an Ultimate Guide to Europe with you today. Our project combines the best advantages of the smartphone revolution — immersive experiences, intelligent apps, and a low cost making it accessible to the masses — with unparalleled local knowledge and decades of storytelling experience.” said Michał Kępiński, the CEO of AudioTrip.
For further details on the Kickstarter project, including biographies of the expert partners and a full run-down of cities covered, you can visit the project here: www.kickstarter.com
Otherwise, information on the AudioTrip app itself can be found here: www.audiotrip.org
Our full press pack, with hi-res imagery, screen shots and press release, is available here: www.dropbox.com
