Lower Manhattan: How the Money Started
95 min · 3 km · easy
izi.TRAVEL and Roamer both offer self-guided audio tours, but they trade off breadth against consistency. izi.TRAVEL is completely free, with tens of thousands of tours across thousands of cities and strong museum coverage, because anyone can publish. Roamer is a smaller, curated catalog with a consistent style, free to start on every tour and then a low per-tour or pass price. If price is the only thing that matters, izi.TRAVEL is free. If you want a dependable, well-produced walk, Roamer's curation is the safer bet.
Roamer vs izi.TRAVEL at a glance
| Roamer | izi.TRAVEL | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free to start; $4.99 per tour, passes $12.99 or $19.99 | Free |
| Model | Curated catalog | Open publishing |
| Coverage | 140+ tours, 45 cities | Tens of thousands of tours, thousands of cities |
| Quality | Consistent house style | Varies widely by publisher |
| Museums | Walking tours | Strong museum coverage with QR codes |
| Offline | Yes | Yes |
The real tradeoff: free vs consistent
Hear a stop from this walk
African Burial Ground: The Ground Underneath
izi.TRAVEL's strength is that it is free and enormous. Its weakness is the same thing: because publishing is open to anyone, one tour can be excellent and the next thin or dated. Roamer takes the opposite approach, with a curated catalog written to a single standard, so you know what you are getting. You still pay nothing to start any Roamer tour, so you can hear the quality before deciding whether to buy. Try one for free.
Which should you choose?
- Want free above all, and touring a museum? izi.TRAVEL is hard to beat for coverage and price.
- Want a dependable, well-produced city walk? Roamer, especially in a city it covers.
- Not sure a place is covered well? Preview a Roamer tour for free, and check izi.TRAVEL reviews before committing.
For the full comparison of free and paid options, see the best self-guided walking tour apps and our roundup of the best free walking tour apps.
Frequently asked questions
- Is izi.TRAVEL really free?
- Yes. izi.TRAVEL is a free audio tour app with tens of thousands of tours across thousands of cities and museums. Because publishing is open, the quality varies from one tour to the next.
- How is Roamer different from izi.TRAVEL?
- Roamer is a curated catalog with a consistent house style, free to start on every tour, then $4.99 per tour or $19.99 for a 30-day pass. izi.TRAVEL is free and far broader, but quality is uneven.
- Which is better for a first-time visitor?
- If a city is covered by Roamer, its curated tours are easier to trust. If not, izi.TRAVEL's free breadth may still have something, though it pays to check reviews first.
Ready to experience it?
Lower Manhattan: How the Money Started
95 min · 3 km · easy