Eight high-tech tours in NYC

Tap into your competitive side for an Amazing Race-style scavenger hunt through Times Square and Rockefeller Center. Just grab your team, open the app on your phone and get ready to compete. You’ll have to crack clues, complete challenges and listen carefully to the instructions in order to follow the route through some of Midtown’s most famous landmarks. Once the final score has been tallied, you’ll be able to see where you stand on the city leaderboard.

Yes, audio tours are nothing new. This one really does revolutionize the way you experience the space, though. Grand Central Terminal typically feels crowded, overwhelming and overwhelmingly loud, thanks to all the travelers rushing between platforms. But once you put on a headset and press play on this audio tour, all that disappears. You’re free to learn about the station’s history, take in the Beaux Arts architecture in all its splendor and even discover a few little-known secrets.

There’s nothing better than getting a tour from a local—especially if that local just so happens to be a world-renowned celebrity. Download the Official Central Park App to hear Scarlett Johansson, Matthew Broderick, Whoopi Goldberg and other A-listers wax poetic about their favorite spots.

Instead of the typical double-decker model, The Ride uses a $1.5 million coach with floor-to-ceiling windows, outward-facing stadium seating and flashing LED lights for all of its tours. It’s new Downtown Experience tour also adds VR technology from Timelooper to the mix. When your guides point out landmarks like Federal Hall, you can pull up the goggles for a 360-degree, full-scale reenactment of historical events. The tour also includes two live performances along the route, as if you needed any more entertainment.

The American Museum of Natural History actually has nine separate apps, but the Explorer app is by far the most useful. It works just like your very own private tour guide: Select the topics that interest you most, and the app will curate a list of exhibits to visit and give you turn-by-turn directions. As you walk through the museum, you’ll discover more interactive quizzes and games, behind-the-scenes information and augmented reality technology that allows you to interact with the displays.

The East Village’s bohemian history as a hotbed of poetry, music and art comes to life in this free, downloadable MP3 tour created by poet, writer and radio producer Pejk Malinovski. The 95-minute tour covers about two miles of the neighborhood and includes stops at Tompkins Square Park and W.H. Auden’s former apartment building. Along the way, you’ll hear readings of poems, archival material and even interviews with local poets.

Both of the experiences offered at The Two Percent Tours—Audio Hop and Crash—rely on radio technology to give you a brand-new look at the New York City art scene. Groups of five to 10 people will want to sign up for Audio Hop. After some introductions and background information, you’ll don wireless transmitters and head inside a gallery or museum. The gadgets allow you to spread out and wander while still catching every word your guide says through the earbuds. Crash is a little more intense: Ticketed guests only receive the location and an audio file the night before, and enter the building one minute apart to stay completely undercover. You all experience the very same audio tour, just in quick succession. Past locations include Christie’s, the Museum of Modern Art and the Dia Art Foundation. 

Amateur shutterbugs will geek out over this photography workshop–sightseeing tour combo that takes place high above the Manhattan skyline. A professional aerial photographer will teach you the basics of shooting from above, including camera settings, angles and lenses. You’re practically guaranteed to shoot some once-in-a-lifetime images of landmarks like Central Park, the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge out the door of your chopper.