How do you experience a place you know well as if for the first time? The answer may be in VoiceMap, a smartphone app that lets you tread in someone else’s footsteps and see your surroundings through their eyes.
Iain Manley and Lauren Edwards (pictured above) founded VoiceMap as “a reaction to the lack of personality in tour bus audio guides”. Their thinking was this: rather than have a “disembodied” voice guide you through a place with layers of history, why not listen to someone who is connected to it through memories and feelings of their own?
VoiceMap has published audio guides in over 30 cities around the world, and Cape Town is leading the way with 22, several of which are in the CBD. The collection of walks is as varied as the storytellers who created them. In a single day, you could climb inside a street artist’s head during a tour of the East City, then – guided by an activist – learn about the sites across town that are linked with past struggles.
Get VoiceMap
VoiceMap’s Android (bit.ly/ getvoicemap) and iOS (bit.ly/ voicemap) apps are free to download, and audio walks in Cape Town cost an average of R24.99. After downloading the app and selecting a walk, you can put your smartphone in your pocket and listen to anecdotes, commentary and opinions, which play through your earphones automatically at specific locations.
Tell your story
VoiceMap connects listeners with stories told by individuals and organisations such as Cape Town Tourism who has partnered with VoiceMap on some of the walks, with its staff members contributing their own tales. If you have something to say, you could even add your voice to the mix and earn royalties. The VoiceMap website (www.voicemap.me) tells you how.
Central City strolls
These are a couple of our favourite CBD walks.
Revolution Route
Written by journalist and activist Gael Reagan, the Revolution Route is infused with performance poetry and original music. It explores stories of resistance to oppression, from the Khoekhoe resistance to colonialism, through the apartheid struggle where figures like Mandela and Biko feature strongly. Landmarks: City Hall, District Six street art, Parliament, St George’s Cathedral and Church Square.
My design district
Narrated by Suné Stassen, programme director of the Open Design Cape Town festival and founder of Rock City Foundation (which specialises in design education), this is the story of the East City, today one of Cape Town’s main design and innovation hubs. Landmarks: Truth Coffee Roasting, The Bank, Harrington Square, The Fugard Theatre and Charly’s Bakery.
For more info on these and other audio walks, including Being a Woman in Cape Town, The Fringe [East City] Street Art Mural Tour featuring Falco One, Slavery in the Cape, Landscape of Change and The Company’s Garden, visit www.voicemap.me.
