For the incurably curious
Every street has a past. Some are frankly scandalous.
Castles, chapels, battlefields and the house where someone moderately famous once sneezed, all pinned to the map around you. Read it, or have it read to you.Castles, chapels and battlefields, all pinned to the map around you. Read it, or have it read to you.
Sources
One map. Every story worth telling.
Local Sights layers some of the world’s finest collections of history and heritage onto a single map. Pick a source to see it in action.
Features
A pocket-sized historian with excellent manners.
More than a map. The free app covers the basics; the features tagged Pro add narration and more, for a single payment.
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Prefer lists to maps? The Sights tab lines up what’s around you by distance or by sheer significance. Longest articles first, because history, like people, tends to go on about itself.
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Armchair travel is still travel. Look up any town, landmark or street and explore it as if you were standing there. Ideal for planning trips, settling pub arguments and looking busy.
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Any article, read aloud. Put the phone away, look up at the actual building and let Local Sights narrate, in one of iOS’s own system voices — audition the whole cast, plummy to brisk, under Settings › Accessibility › Spoken Content. A queue of nearby sights keeps playing as you wander, like a tour guide who never asks for a tip.
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Sights, bookmarks and your listening queue on the car screen. That dull stretch of motorway turns out to have a Roman fort, two battles and a mildly scandalous monastery. The sights being read update automatically from your closest surroundings or just the most prominent sights as you carry on driving.
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Choosing a Wikipedia language is free. With Pro, Local Sights picks the best language per source and per country: the local one when you speak it, yours when you don’t. Crossing a border no longer means rummaging through settings.
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Save sights into a list and it follows you to every device through your own iCloud. Your first list is free; Pro lets you make as many as your wanderlust requires: a weekend in Trieste, churches worth a detour, places to bore your friends with.
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Nearby sights on your Home Screen, and Siri on call: say “Show nearby sights” and off you go. With Pro, “Play nearby sights” starts the narration without you touching a thing.
Privacy
Private by design, not by afterthought.
No account
No sign-up, no password, no profile. Open the app and wander.
No tracking
No ads, no tracking, no cookies. We don’t know where you are, and we’d rather not ask.
Your photos stay put
Photos are read on your phone to place them on the map. They are never uploaded anywhere.
LOCAL SIGHTS PRO
Hear the place you’re standing in.
One purchase unlocks narration, CarPlay, automatic languages and unlimited bookmark lists, permanently. Not a subscription: nothing renews and nothing recurs.
- Listen to every sightAny sight read aloud, with the full player and a queue of what’s nearby.
- CarPlaySights, bookmarks and your queue on the car screen while you drive. What’s being read updates automatically as you go, or listen to just the most prominent sights.
- Automatic languagesYour preferred languages follow you across borders, per source.
- Unlimited bookmark listsOrganise trips, cities and themes into as many lists as you like.
Word on the street
People are saying things. Some of them are even people. Allegedly.
Unsolicited testimonials from our entirely real and not at all invented users.
“I’ve lived here for 43 years. Turns out I’ve been parking on a medieval plague pit. Five stars.”
Gerald PumpernickelRetired accountant, now slightly haunted“My husband used to read every plaque out loud. Now the app does it and he has taken up the harmonica. Mixed results.”
Brunhilde Van SnorkelMarried to a man who reads plaques aloud“Coo.”
A PigeonResident, Prešeren Square“Finally something to do on long drives other than fighting over the thermostat.”
The Hon. Tabitha CrumblewickCarPlay devotee“Would get pleasantly lost again. Did, in fact. Twice before lunch.”
Capt. Horatio FishknuckleNavigator (ret.), frequently lost“I asked where the nearest castle was. There were eleven. Best holiday ever.”
Zdravko, 8¾Junior knightSay hello. Or complain. Both are welcome.
Found a bug, a strange translation or a better joke? Write to us. A human reads every message, usually over coffee.
info@localsights.app