Return to a time of tremendous wealth and oppression on this tour of Charleston. Discover beautiful antebellum mansions and waterside parks as you revisit the leadup to the Civil War.
Historic Charleston - South Carolina
Dive into Charleston’s rich antebellum history as you explore this beautiful city! Admire beautifully preserved and restored antebellum architecture and visit Charleston’s gorgeous waterfront. Learn the role this city played in the Revolutionary War and find out what life was like for residents during the 18th and 19th centuries. This tour will also show you to plenty of historic homes-turned-museums so you can really immerse yourself in the past!
As you explore, you’ll get an in-depth look at the struggles that defined this city during the leadup to the Civil War, including the little-known fight for abolition. That’s right, the fight to end slavery wasn’t just relegated to the north! You’ll also hear how the Civil War totally transformed Charleston and what that means for residents today.
If you’re planning a trip to the south, it’s hard to beat the history and beauty of Charleston!
Featuring riveting stories, a lively narrator, and easy automatic audio, this app puts exploration in the palm of your hand!
This comprehensive tour of Charleston includes:
■ Charleston’s Past and Present
■ Native Nations and Charleston
■ The Cherokee War
■ Marion Square
■ Oscar Marion
■ Charleston Tea Party
■ Siege of Charleston
■ Reclaiming Charleston
■ Liberty Square
■ Grimke Sisters’ Home
■ Slavery and Abolition in Charleston
■ Historic Charleston City Market
■ Denmark Vesey
■ The Uprising
■ The Crackdown
■ Miles Brewton House
■ The Battery
■ Charleston During the Civil War
■ Nathaniel Russell House
■ Saint Michael’s Church
■ Powder Magazine
■ Heyward-Washington House
■ Rainbow Row
■ Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon
■ Joe Riley Waterfront Park
HOW IT WORKS:
As you drive/walk, audio stories play automatically based on your location. Simply go to the starting point of the tour and begin following the given route. Each story begins playing on its own, usually just before you reach a point of interest.
TOUR FEATURES:
▶ Freedom of travel
No scheduled tour times, no crowded buses, and no rush to keep moving past stops that interest you. You have total freedom to skip ahead, linger, and take as many photos as you’d like.
▶ Automatic play
No muss, no fuss. Just follow the app’s built-in route to all the must-visit spots — the audio stories about everything you see will play automatically!
▶ Works offline
Download the tour in advance and then use it seamlessly, even in areas with no service!
▶ Lifetime purchase
No monthly subscription. No time limits. No usage limits. Enjoy this tour as many times as you like.
▶ Incredible stories
Immerse yourself in the history, culture, and secrets of this famous site with the help of a top-tier narrator and fascinating stories written by experts.
▶ Award-winning app
Featured on Thrillist and WBZ, this easy-to-use app won the Laurel Award for Technology from the Newport Mansions, who use the app for over a million tours per year.
FREE DEMO vs FULL ACCESS:
Check out the totally free demo to get an idea of what this tour is all about. If you like it, purchase the tour to get full access to all of the stories.
QUICK TIPS:
■ Download ahead of time, over data or WiFi.
■ Be sure the phone battery is fully charged or take an external battery pack.
NOTE:
Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life. This app uses your location service and GPS tracking feature to allow real-time tracking of your route.
Overall, this is a great way to tour Charleston on a budget! From start to finish, this is a 6.5 mile tour that starts at the visitor center and ends up at waterfront park. It is another 1.5 miles back to the visitors center, but we just took an Uber back to the car. You can also take some shortcuts if you don’t have that much time to dedicate to it.
The experience of the app is pretty much flawless. My wife and I each put a AirPod in to hear the tour and we were able to talk to each other during breaks in the audio, which was nice. Verbal navigation and navigation on the map were both really easy. At each stop the audio automatically plays, however, the position of some of these could have been closer to specific landmarks to enjoy the audio while looking at the landmark.
We liked that the route of the tour was both on the beaten path (like The Market, The Battery, King Street, and Rainbow Row) and some off the beaten path (like the jail and various houses of significant people). You could potentially drive the route, but walking it surely gives you a more authentic experience of what walking the streets of Charleston may have been like back in the day. We wish the stops would have gone into a little more detail at some spots, but it was overall a really great value for $10.
Easy to explore
Loved exploring this beautiful town with this tour. We took frequent breaks for lunch, photos, etc and it was easy to turn the tour on/off again.
The only questionable thing was that the Welcome message repeated every time I turned it back on but then the tour would immediately catch up to wherever we were along the route — not sure if that’s a bug or not.
Worked well as advertised
GPS worked well. It played stories automatically as we got to the location. Kind of neat! The most important is that we feel that we saw everything and not missed anything.
