You've picked a museum. You've checked the opening hours. You know they offer an audio guide. Now what?
Most people show up, grab whatever guide is available at the front desk, and figure it out as they go. That works. A small amount of preparation (maybe fifteen minutes the night before) turns a good museum visit into a significantly better one. You see more, understand more, and don't end up in that annoying situation where you're rushing through the last five rooms because you didn't realize you'd been in the Egyptian wing for an hour and a half.
What's actually worth doing before you go:
Check the museum's website for audio guide details
This sounds obvious. It isn't. Museum websites vary wildly in how they present audio guide information. Some bury it three clicks deep under "Plan Your Visit." Some don't mention it at all until you're standing at the ticket counter.
What you want to find out before you arrive:
- Is the guide included in admission or does it cost extra? Many museums bundle it in. Others charge anywhere from three to eight euros on top of the ticket. Some app-based guides are free while the museum's hardware device costs money. Knowing this helps you budget and avoids the small awkwardness of reaching the desk and realizing you didn't bring enough cash.
- Is it an app or a rented device? App-based guides run on your phone. Device-based guides mean you'll pick up a handset at reception and return it when you leave. This matters for preparation. If it's an app, you can download it at home. If it's a device, there's nothing to do in advance.
- What languages are available? Traditional audio guides might offer five or six languages. Newer AI-powered guides often support 40 or more. If you're visiting a museum abroad, check whether your language is covered. Don't assume. Some smaller museums only have the guide in the local language plus English.
- Are there specialized tours? Many museums offer different audio guide tracks: a highlights tour for short visits, a children's version, an accessibility-focused guide, or themed tours covering specific periods or artists. If you're visiting with kids or have specific interests, knowing your options beforehand means you can pick the right one immediately rather than scrolling through menus while your family gets restless.
The museum's website is your best source. Their social media pages sometimes have better information about the audio guide experience. Look for visitor posts or stories showing what the guide actually looks like in use.
Download the app before you go
If the museum uses a smartphone-based guide, download the app at home. On your couch. On your Wi-Fi.
Museum Wi-Fi is often terrible. Thick stone walls, thousands of devices competing for bandwidth, dead zones in exactly the rooms you want to be in. Downloading a 200MB app on museum Wi-Fi while standing in the lobby with your coat still on is a miserable way to start a visit. I've done it. Multiple times. It's fifteen minutes of staring at a progress bar while other visitors walk past you into the galleries.
Download the app at home. Create your account if it needs one. Open it once to make sure it loads. Some apps let you download tour content for offline use. Do that too. Then when you arrive at the museum, you're ready to go immediately.
One more thing: charge your phone. An audio guide running on your phone for two or three hours will drain your battery, especially if you're using the screen frequently. Start with a full charge, or bring a portable battery. Losing your guide halfway through because your phone died at 12% is annoying.
Budget more time than you think
The most common mistake when planning a museum visit with an audio guide: people budget the same amount of time as a visit without one.
An audio guide slows you down. That's the point. You stop at exhibits you'd otherwise walk past. You learn context that makes you want to look more carefully. You listen to a two-minute narration about a painting, then notice something you didn't see before, then maybe ask a question if the guide supports it.
A reasonable rule of thumb: multiply the museum's suggested visit time by 1.5 to 2. If the website says "allow 90 minutes," budget two and a half hours with an audio guide. If it says "2-3 hours," plan for four. You might not use all of it. You won't be watching the clock in the last wing, deciding whether to skip the temporary exhibition because your parking is about to expire.
This isn't just about listening to narration. An audio guide changes how you move through a space. Without one, most people do a circuit. They walk through each room, glance at what catches their eye, read a few labels, and move on. With a guide, you stop. You look at specific things. You follow a narrative that makes the rooms feel connected rather than random. That takes time, and it's time well spent, but only if you've budgeted for it.
If you only have an hour, that's fine. Look for a highlights tour. Most guides offer one that covers the collection's most important pieces in a shorter loop. Better to hear ten stops properly than race through forty while a narrator tries to keep up with your speed-walking.
Pick your visit time carefully
Audio guides and crowds don't mix well.
When a museum is packed, you're constantly competing for space in front of the exhibits the guide wants to show you. You're trying to listen to a narration about a painting while someone's elbow is in your ribs. The stops near popular pieces turn into bottlenecks where everyone with an audio guide clusters at the same spots.
If you have flexibility, visit during off-peak hours. For most museums, that means:
- Weekday mornings, especially Tuesday through Thursday
- Late afternoons, particularly the last two hours before closing (many people leave early)
- The first hour after lunch (crowds often thin out around 1-2 PM as people eat)
Avoid Saturday and Sunday mornings at popular museums. Avoid school holiday weeks if you can. Avoid the first day of a blockbuster temporary exhibition.
A quiet museum with an audio guide is a completely different experience from a packed one. You can stand in front of a painting for three minutes without feeling pressure to move. You can actually hear the narration without cranking the volume. You can follow the guide's suggested route without constantly detouring around tour groups.
Bring headphones
Almost every museum guide (app or device) works with headphones. Some rented devices come with earbuds included, but they're usually cheap ones that fall out of your ears and sound like someone narrating through a tin can.
Bring your own. Whatever headphones you normally use for music or podcasts. Wired earbuds are most reliable since they don't need charging and don't have Bluetooth connection issues. If you prefer wireless, just make sure they're charged.
Good headphones make a real difference. You hear the narration clearly at a comfortable volume. You can pick up ambient sound design if the guide includes it. You're not annoying other visitors by turning the speaker up because the included earbuds don't seal properly.
If you're visiting with someone, consider bringing a headphone splitter or each using one earbud. Some couples like to go through the guide simultaneously so they can share reactions. Others prefer to split up and compare notes later. Either approach works. Just decide before you're standing in the first gallery trying to figure out the logistics.
Have a loose plan, not a rigid one
You don't need to study the museum's floor plan like you're planning a heist. A rough sense of layout helps.
Most museum websites have floor plans or at least a list of galleries by floor. Glance at it. Know where the things you're most interested in are located. If the museum has both a permanent collection and a temporary exhibition, decide which you want to prioritize. The audio guide might cover both, but doing everything in one visit can be exhausting.
A good approach: pick two or three rooms or themes you definitely want to see, and let the audio guide handle the rest. Start with the curated tour the guide recommends. If it takes you past your must-see spots, great. If not, deviate when you feel like it.
The best museum visits are the ones where you give yourself permission to linger in one room and skip another entirely. An audio guide supports this. It's not going anywhere, and you can always pause or jump ahead. You have to mentally allow yourself to do that, which is harder if you walked in with a rigid "see everything" plan.
What to expect when you actually start the guide
If you've never used a museum audio guide before, here's what typically happens.
With a rented hardware device, you pick it up at the ticket desk, someone shows you the play and stop buttons, and you carry it around. At each exhibit, you type in the number posted on the wall label and listen to the corresponding clip. Simple, a bit clunky, but it works.
With a smartphone app, the experience varies. Basic apps work like the hardware device. You select stops manually. More advanced ones track your location and trigger content automatically as you walk through the galleries. Some offer interactive features: you can ask questions about what you're seeing, get suggestions for what to look at next, or switch between a full tour and a highlights version mid-visit.
AI-powered guides (like Musa) go further. They generate responses in real time, so you can ask specific questions about an exhibit and get an actual answer rather than a pre-recorded script. You can follow a curated tour passively when you're tired, then ask a question when something catches your interest. The guide adapts to you rather than playing the same recording to everyone.
Whatever type you're using, give yourself five minutes at the beginning to figure out the interface. Don't start in front of the museum's most famous painting. Start somewhere quiet where you can fumble with the app without feeling rushed. Once you're comfortable with the controls, the rest of the visit flows naturally.
The stuff nobody tells you
A few things I've learned from using audio guides at dozens of museums:
You don't have to listen to every stop. Guides often have 30, 40, even 60 stops. Nobody does all of them. Pick the tour that matches your available time, and skip stops that don't interest you. The guide won't judge you.
Take your headphones out sometimes. Museums are physical spaces. The architecture, the light, the ambient sound of footsteps on marble are part of the experience. If you spend the entire visit with headphones in, you miss the atmosphere. Pause between rooms. Look around without narration.
Ask questions if the guide supports it. Many people use interactive guides like a traditional one, just pressing play and listening. If the guide lets you ask questions, try it. "What's the medium?" or "Who commissioned this?" or "What's that symbol in the corner?" Sometimes the best part of the visit is a tangent you didn't plan on.
Don't try to remember everything. You're not studying for an exam. Let the guide give you context, enjoy the experience, and trust that the things that resonate will stick with you. If you want to remember something specific, take a photo of the wall label.
Check the gift shop connection. Some guides mention related books or prints available in the museum shop. If you loved a particular piece, that's worth noting. It's easier to find in the shop if you remember the artist's name and gallery number.
Make it work for your group
Visiting with kids? Look for the children's audio tour. Most kid-friendly guides are shorter, use simpler language, and focus on stories rather than art history. Some include games or scavenger hunts. Let your kids hold the phone or device. Ownership makes them more engaged.
Visiting with someone who has accessibility needs? Check what the museum offers. Some guides have audio descriptions for blind or low-vision visitors, transcripts for deaf or hard-of-hearing visitors, or simplified content options. Call the museum's accessibility line if the website doesn't have clear information. They usually know more than what's published online.
Visiting with a group of adults? Decide upfront whether you're going together or splitting up. Audio guides are fundamentally solo experiences. Everyone listens at their own pace. Forcing a group to stay together while using individual guides creates a lot of "wait, I'm not done with this one yet" friction. Meet at the cafe in 90 minutes. Compare highlights over coffee.
The fifteen-minute investment
Everything in this article comes down to about fifteen minutes of preparation the night before. Check the website. Download the app. Charge your phone. Glance at the floor plan. Pick a visit time.
That's it. You'll walk into the museum ready to go while everyone around you is still standing in the lobby trying to connect to Wi-Fi. Three hours later, when you leave having actually understood what you saw rather than just having walked past it, you'll be glad you bothered.