For flexible sustainable city sightseeing: go walk about

When out sightseeing, I would always recommend that you wear footwear that is comfortable. In an ancient cities like York and Chester, one of the highlights for many visitors is enjoying a walk along a stretch of the historic walls. If you are used to wearing high heels - largely on the flat - think about how your feet (and your shoes) will cope with climbing up a set of steps or negotiating cobbles, like on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

For any dads sightseeing with teenage children, you might to avoid wearing socks with sandals unless you don't mind a bit of an ear-bashing. As the late British Comedienne, Linda Smith, once said: "We know Jesus can't have been English. He is always wearing sandals, but never with socks."

On a more serious note, in these troubles financial times, it is easy to overlook the threat that climate changes poses to all of our lives - and the lives of our children and grandchildren. Going walk about with a Walk Talk Tour audio downloadable guide will help you reduce your carbon footprint and allow you to explore the sights on your own terms. Your tour is reusable, you are using your own equipment (iPod, MP3 player, cell phone or BlackBerry) or if you hire the tour (the equipment - MP3 player, neck phones and map are reusable) and you are not using any fossil fuels like you would do if you decided to take a sightseeing bus tour.

'Battery-hen sightseeing' that's rushing to see as much as possible in a confined space of time - can be counterproductive. You may be able to cross off various 'must-see places' on a list, but will you be able to remember them when you return home?

If you're on vacation you should be in charge of your own destiny - for as much as your stay as possible. Each Walk Talk Tour is downloadable from walktalktour.com and allows independent minded visitors to easily visit on the route - or close to - the route of the tour.

Visitors to Chester, Manchester and York can also hire the respective tours of each city from the Tourist Information Centres a preloaded MP3 player. Visitors utilising this service are asked to pay a deposit of £10 per MP3 player, which is refundable once the MP3 player(s) have been returned to the Tourist Information Centre at the end of your tour.

I took the picture of Chester Town Hall (above) on Monday morning. The Tourist Information Centre, where visitors can hire the Chester Revealed podcast guided tour, is situated at the left-hand end of the building on the ground floor.

This is the 200th post made on the Walk Talk Tours Blog. I hope that you have enjoyed reading the blog.

In February last year, we started off with eight tours in three cities: London, Edinburgh and York. We have subsequently added Manchester and, most recently, Chester to our portfolio of audio downloadable guides.

More tours are in the pipeline. We value your support and your feedback. Why not go walk about? Thanks for reading. Here's to the next 100 posts!

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