Food Heroes Self-Guided Audio Tour
Food Heroes Self-Guided Audio Tour
Based on our most popular sampling tour of Bath, we’ve created a self-guided audio tour of Bath’s Food Heroes! Utilising a free app, our tour uses GPS technology to keep you on track as you explore. You’ll hear about some of the city’s famed history, alongside the stories behind the independent businesses our tour will highlight.
You can pause the tour at any of the businesses you’ll visit, to peruse their range of handcrafted treats. However, we recommend completing the tour in full first. You can then repeat it, taking more time to visit some of the businesses highlighted along the way.
This tour is perfect for solo travellers, families, and larger groups who are happy to listen to a tour on a mobile device. It’s especially handy for those who prefer to take a short tour in their own time.
How to purchase your Food Heroes Audio tour
In order to enjoy this tour you will need to download the free VoiceMap app and create an account. Both are a quick, and easy process.
Click the ‘Learn More’ button to be taken to the VoiceMap website. Here you can read more about VoiceMap, download the app, and purchase the tour. Then you can start your tour straight away!
Scroll down to check out our FAQ below which may answer any further questions you might have.
Tour information
FOOD HEROES SELF-GUIDED AUDIO TOUR
Tour Duration : ~1 hour without stopping for visits.
Price per download : ~£6 (VoiceMap advertise the price in GBP, and you will be charged in GBP, but it is based on a USD amount so you may find that the price fluctuates slightly on a daily basis)
IMPORTANT: In order to take this tour you will need to have a smart phone (and AirPods or similar listening device). You’ll also need to download a free app to access the tour. But you do not need phone signal or wifi once you’ve downloaded the tour.
Capacity : 1 or more people
Availability : The tour is best enjoyed between 10am and 5pm Monday to Saturday when the majority of businesses are open. We cannot guarantee opening times of any of the businesses highlighted during the tour. Once downloaded, the tour can be taken as many times as you wish.
Our recommendations for getting the best experience from your Food Heroes Audio Tour
- Download the app and tour in advance:
- Once you’ve downloaded the VoiceMap app, you need to download the tour (on the app) also. Both are quickly downloaded in a location where you have the best data signal. At home, using wifi is best as central Bath doesn’t have the best data signal.
- Once you’ve downloaded the app, be sure to spend a little time exploring it:
- You’ll be able to navigate what you need if you spend 5 mins getting to know your way around the VoiceMap app.
- Plan to take the tour between Monday and Saturday between 9am and 5pm:
- You can take the tour anytime. But to get the best experience we recommend taking the tour when all the businesses are open. So try to avoid taking the tour on Sundays or in the evenings.
- Ensure you have some good headphones, AirPods, or similar listening device:
- Listening on your mobile device without a listening aid such as AirPods will reduce the value of your experience.
Then hit ‘Start the Tour’ and put your phone in your pocket, and enjoy your exploration of Bath’s best artisan food & drink businesses!
Frequently asked questions:
No. The only time you need to have data signal or wifi is when you download the VoiceMap app, and then download the tour. As long as you do this before starting the tour, you don’t need to have access to data signal or wifi at any point during the tour.
Yes!… this is easy, but there are a couple of ways you can do this.
The best option is for everyone to purchase the tour on their device. The low price of our audio tour should make it accessible for everyone. This way, everyone can start the tour at the same time and listen using their own device.
Alternatively, you can download the tour and play it from one device. However, we don’t recommend this as the best option. Even though everyone can listen on one device, there will always be external noises making it less easy to hear. Also, some of the playback is made to be listened to while you’re walking. So this also makes it less easy for everyone to listen at the same on one device.
It’s definitely best to put your phone in your pocket and listening to the tour individually with ear/head phones. It will ensure you get the best value from your experience.
Sadly not, but you can choose to stop and make purchases at any of the businesses we highlight along the route.
For tours which include samples, check out our Food Heroes tour or our Private Food & Drink Sampling Tours. By contrast to our audio tour, these two options are longer tours of 3 hours, and are led by one of our expert local tour guides. They include visits to a series of businesses where we’ll share a sample with you at each visit. Many businesses highlighted on our Food Heroes Audio Tour, are included as visits with samples on our Food Heroes tours, and private tours.
Yes – it does. However, we’ve found that devices with iOS such as iPhones seem to have less glitches with the VoiceMap app. Android devices have been shown to operate the app more temperamentally.
Absolutely, yes!
This is in fact, our most accessible tour for children. In fact our first ‘testers’ were a family with a 12-year old and a 9-year old and the kids lead the adults around and loved it!… they even told us they could listen to more.
Remember though, that our commentary is aimed primarily at those who are interested in finding out more about Bath’s history and heritage. It also covers information on the background of the city’s artisan food & drink businesses.
We recommend the tour for children aged 8+ depending on each child’s likely attention span. You may wish to break up the tour by stopping at some of the businesses along the course of the route. This may help the children in your group get more out of their time following the tour.
Sadly not. Our audio tour has been built on the VoiceMap as we’ve found that this app offers the best audio tour experience. It’s free to download the app – the price you pay then covers the download of our tour.
We recommend the best time to enjoy our audio tour is on weekdays or Saturdays, during the day. It’s not impossible to take the tour outside these times, and if it’s the only time you can do it then don’t let that put you off. But just be aware that the majority of the businesses highlighted during the tour will be closed after ~5pm, and before ~9/10am.
On Sundays, one of the locations is also not available (unless you visit on certain days during Bath’s Xmas Market). The tour will direct you around this as part of the commentary, and you can always come back another time to visit that location. Most of the remaining businesses are open during the day on Sundays. So Sunday daytimes are less restrictive than opting to do the tour in the evenings.
Yes! This is in fact our only tour where we can guarantee that you’re able to bring your pet with you.
However, if you choose to visit any of the businesses on the tour, please ask staff before entering with your pet as the nature of some business does not allow for animals on their premises due to fresh consumables being accessible on public display.
If you have difficulties operating the app on your device, we would encourage you to provide feedback to VoiceMap by using their help facility – if we do this on your behalf, getting results is more cumbersome. So, we’d encourage you to contact VoiceMap directly with any difficulties you’re experiencing, in order to get the quickest and best resolution.
Themed tours & events
As well as our bespoke tours, you can also privately book options from our repertoire of unique tasting events:
Gin Spa | Tea Spa | Cheese Spa
We can also design tours or tasting events with your choice of theme or structure. For example, a tour, or a seated sampling event, which focuses on specific product such as coffee, cake, Asian food, Mediterranean cuisine… or let us know what you’re looking for and we’ll get creative with our artisan food & drink friends in Bath to create an event just for you!!