Art and history on the move: free walking tours across the US

April 6, 2026

With spring here, what better time to explore art and culture beyond museum walls? Check out this selection of self-guided audio walking tours across the US, from Florida to New York. Then grab your headphones, lace up your walking shoes, and start exploring!

Why Take an Audio Tour?

With self-guided audio tours, you can explore sculpture parks, historic neighborhoods, cemeteries, and more at your own pace while being led by the voice of an expert.

Tampa Soulwalk

Seven large, illuminated mosaic panels stand outdoors at night against a dark building. Each panel depicts figures and scenes using small, light-colored tesserae against a dark background. A circular, mosaic-covered structure with ground lights is in the foreground. — Courtesy of Tampa Soulwalk.

Located on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Tampa Soulwalk is a trail created by the City of Tampa and the Tampa Bay History Center, which ties together historically Black neighborhoods across the city. Their tour gives visitors and residents the opportunity to uncover the history and cultural contributions of Tampa’s Black citizens across several areas of the city, from Downtown Tampa, which dates back to 1824, to post-World-War-II neighborhoods such as Lincoln Gardens and Carver City.

Their Central Avenue & The Scrub audio tour on Bloomberg Connects covers an area once known as the “Harlem of the South.” This neighborhood was the vibrant center of the city’s Black community and a hub for music, culture, and business in the early twentieth century. The tour reveals how formerly enslaved people helped build the neighborhood after the Civil War and how its cultural legacy continues to shape Tampa today. Hear about how Ray Charles made his first ever record in a rented room on Short Emory Street, and discover the murals, sculptures, and memorials which bring the neighborhood’s rich history to life.

Preservation Society of Charleston

The image shows a large white house with a wraparound porch, partially shaded by large oak trees draped with Spanish moss. Two people are walking on a sidewalk in front of the house, with sunlight filtering through the trees. — Tourgoers visit the grounds of the historic Charleston Naval Base, photographed in 2022 by Justin Falk, courtesy of the Preservation Society of Charleston.

A port city in South Carolina, Charleston is home to the US’s oldest grassroots historic preservation organization: The Preservation Society of Charleston. Today, the society aims to honor the living city, supporting the needs of the people who live and work there, while maintaining the historical elements that make it unique.

The society’s Charleston Justice Journey audio tour combines eight sites that illustrate significant moments in African American history. See where historic civil rights demonstrations took place, including the Kress Building Sit-In, during which 24 African American students took a stand against racial segregation. Hear about Robert Smalls, a young enslaved man and skilled pilot who staged a daring escape from Charleston Harbor disguised as a Confederate captain. And visit the previous site of the Calvary Episcopal Church, once the oldest African American Episcopal congregation in Charleston.

UMLAUF Sculpture Garden + Museum

Group of people sitting and standing looking at artwork among foliage. — Visitors at the UMLAUF. Photo: Rae French

Nestled in the heart of Austin, Texas, the UMLAUF Sculpture Garden + Museum hosts a rotating program of contemporary art exhibitions and is home to a permanent collection of works by 20th-century sculptor Charles Umlauf. His works are set within a serene landscape, just next door to the Umlaufs’ family home, studio, and garden, which they gifted to the City of Austin in 1985.

The Collection Highlights Audio Tour explores some of Umlauf’s most important works and is narrated by museum staff. Discover Umlauf’s extraordinary sculptures made in stone and bronze, including Spirit of Flight (1959), a companion to his work commissioned for Dallas’s Love Field airport; War Mother (1939), his response to the 1939 Nazi invasion of Poland; and Diver (1956), modeled on Umlauf’s son diving into the nearby Barton Springs.

Storm King Art Center

Visitors looking at a brilliant red construction located between two trees and a curved sculpture on the left. — Alexander Liberman, Iliad, 1974–76. © The Alexander Liberman Trust. Photo by Jerry L. Thompson.

Located in New York’s Hudson Valley, Storm King Art Center is, at 500 acres, one of the world’s largest outdoor sculpture gardens. The centre has been commissioning site-specific art since the early 1970s, focusing on the dialogue between art and the natural world. Many of the works you will encounter were created to be seen exclusively within Storm King’s striking landscapes.

Their Highlights: Museum Hill to South Fields tour begins with sweeping views of the surrounding Hudson Valley and introduces key works in the collection, including Louise Nevelson’s City on the High Mountain (1983), a twenty-foot steel sculpture that combines elements from her earlier works to create an imposing matte-black composition.

The Site Specific Artworks tour covers most of the site’s regions with a focus on works made specifically for their location at Storm King. It includes artist Maya Lin talking about her magnificent Storm King Wavefield (2007–08), undulating swells of earth that form an ocean of waves across the grassy terrain.

Green-Wood Cemetery

A reddish-brown Gothic Revival Arch with multiple spires and carved figures stands under a clear blue sky. Two smaller buildings with patterned roofs flank the ornate entrance. — The Arch appears at the entrance to Green-Wood. Photographed by Green-Wood Staff.

With its grand architecture, superb statuary, and magnificent mausoleums, Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, is recognized as one of the world’s most beautiful cemeteries. Established in 1838, it boasts acres of hills, valleys, glacial ponds, and paths, and is the resting place of many famous figures, including Leonard Bernstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The Notable Sites of Green-Wood tour explores the cemetery as a landscape shaped by nature, history, art, and memory. You are guided to key architectural and geological features, including Battle Hill, the highest natural point in Brooklyn, which also played an important role in the Revolutionary War, and the elaborately designed Matthews Monument, which commemorates the so-called Soda Fountain King with gargoyles that spray water when it rains.

You can access these free walking tours, alongside digital guides to over 1,300 museums and cultural organizations around the world, exclusively on Bloomberg Connects.