sonovia
We have a dual mission:
give you access to excellent audio tours
and empower you to create your own!
We have a dual mission:
give you access to excellent audio tours
and empower you to create your own!
sono·via
a journey guided entirely by sound
Audio tracks are pinned to locations. Walk up, and the narration begins.
The narration helps you navigate and find landmarks. If you wander, it gently brings you back on track.
There’s a map on your screen, but you’ll rarely need it. Phone in pocket, your surroundings are your focus.
sonovia studio is also available online
To establish a living cultural archive of place-based stories.To inspire people to contribute their perspective by creating unique tours.
We seek stories from local voices and lived experiences alongside the expertise of professionals, sharing the diverse ways in which places gain and hold meaning.
We share our proceeds equitably with tour creators through a transparent online portal.
Our technology enables stories to chime in your ear at exactly the right time, at exactly the right place.
Our story began in 1980s Istanbul, as two childhood friends playing soccer beneath walnut and mulberry trees.
Years later, our paths took different directions. One of us became a software engineer and visited forty-nine countries. Whenever work left a few hours, he tried to experience each destination through the eyes of its locals. The other became a professional tour guide, sharing the stories of cities with thousands of people across the world—from Türkiye to France, from Brazil to Japan.
About ten years ago, when one of us moved to the United States and began exploring the rhythms, culture, and overlooked details of a new home, he realized something unexpected: after forty-five years in Istanbul, he had never truly discovered that city. Meanwhile, the other hoped that the knowledge and experience accumulated over four decades could reach beyond the few hours of guided tours, connecting with people everywhere and being passed on to future generations.
Years later, our paths crossed again in an Istanbul that had become very different from the one we remembered. We saw that it wasn’t only the buildings that had changed—shops, neighbors, everyday traditions, and countless small stories that gave those places meaning had quietly disappeared as well.
Sonovia was born from that realization.
We wanted to build a living cultural archive where people could preserve the places they know and love in their own voice and from their own perspective. Our surroundings are more than buildings, streets, and squares: they are shaped by the events that unfolded there, the people who lived them, and the storytellers who have devoted themselves to understanding them.
The spirit of a place may be found in a childhood memory. It may be found in a historian’s years of research, or in the wisdom a tour guide has refined over decades. It may yet be found in the perspective of an architect, a fisherman, or a neighbor who has spent a lifetime on the same streets.
Today, artificial intelligence can generate endless amounts of content in seconds. But no AI can tell the story of a place with the voice, the emphasis, and the lived experience of an authentic storyteller.
If you want to tell the story of a place—or discover it through someone else’s eyes—we invite you to Sonovia.