5 Lonely Planet iPhone walking tour apps for London

In London on business and looking to stretch your legs when the weather turns pleasant this spring?

Lonely Planet has 5 audio walking tour apps for your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. (Although, since the whole point is that you listen to it while walking along, the iPad compatibility is a little pointless since you can't exactly fit it in a pocket.)

The apps have maps, recorded information (including fascinating facts from the BBC Archives) and use GPS to help you avoid getting lost.

The first batch of audio walking tour apps cover five areas of central London:

• South Bank
• Spitalfields
• Covent Garden
• The City
• The West End

Business travellers are likely to get the most use out of the tour of The City, which is London's old financial hub. (Don't confuse it with the newer Docklands financial area around Canary Wharf.) 

Doing the whole of the City tour takes a full day, but the beauty of the iPhone version is that you can start or stop wherever you like. 

So, if you've just got an hour's lunch break and it's a lovely English spring day outside, you can pick a couple of the spots on the list and go for a quick walk.

Alternatively, some other walking tours take less time: the South Bank tour, for example, is for half a day.

Usefully, the apps don't require a data connection to work -- once you download them, they sit on your iPhone and can be used offline. That makes each app relatively large (around 50 MB each in size), of course.

The GPS functionality is also well thought through: the app will notify you when you're near a point of interest and tell you more about it.

The apps are A$4.99 in the Australian Apple Store, or US$3.99 if you've followed our useful guide to get yourself a US Apple Store account.

John Walton

Aviation journalist and travel columnist John took his first long-haul flight when he was eight weeks old and hasn't looked back since. Well, except when facing rearwards in business class.