Yes, bring your own. The Natural History Museum does not provide them. There is no headphone rental counter, no vending machine, and no loan desk at the South Kensington entrance. Every audio option for the museum, whether it is the free NHM SoundCloud guides, the Attenborough-narrated Hintze Hall tour, or any third-party app like Musa, Viator, or GetYourGuide, assumes you arrive with a pair of earbuds in your pocket.
This short guide covers what kind of headphones work, what to do if you forgot a pair, and how families can share.
The short answer
The NHM audio guide is a phone-based experience. You play it through your own device. That means:
- You need headphones to listen without disturbing other visitors.
- Any wired or Bluetooth earbuds that work with your phone will work at the museum.
- The museum does not sell or rent them. Plan ahead.
Playing audio out loud on your phone speaker is not explicitly banned in the museum's visitor policy, but it is poor etiquette in a gallery full of other people and their children. Treat it as off-limits.
Wired or Bluetooth: both are fine
There is no museum rule against either. Pick whichever matches your phone and your preference.
Bluetooth earbuds (AirPods, Galaxy Buds, any generic pair) are the simplest option for most visitors. Pair them before you enter the galleries. Pairing new devices inside Hintze Hall under the blue whale skeleton with 2,000 other people around is slower than doing it at home.
Wired earbuds are fully allowed. If your phone only has a Lightning or USB-C port, bring the adapter. Wired is more reliable in areas where Bluetooth can get finicky, and you never have to worry about the battery running out mid-dinosaur.
Noise-cancelling headphones are permitted and work well in the busier galleries like Hintze Hall and the Dinosaurs gallery. For children, switch to transparency or ambient mode so they can still hear you and museum staff.
Sharing with family
There is no NHM-provided splitter service. If you want two people to listen from one phone, you have three simple options:
- 3.5mm headphone splitter. Costs about £3 to £8 at any electronics shop. Plug two wired earbuds into one phone. Works with any device, adapter permitting.
- Bluetooth multi-pair transmitter. Small devices from brands like Avantree pair two sets of wireless earbuds to one audio source.
- One earbud each. Split a pair of wired earbuds between parent and child. Cheap, instant, no extra kit.
For longer visits with kids, it is often easier to give each person their own phone with the audio pre-loaded. The NHM audio is designed for self-pacing, so everyone can listen at their own speed. See our guide on nhm audio guide for kids for more on keeping children engaged.
Forgot your headphones? Where to buy near the museum
If you realise at the ticket queue that your earbuds are sitting on your kitchen table, you have a few options within a short walk of the South Kensington entrance.
- Boots, 1 Harrington Road. About three minutes on foot. Stocks basic wired earbuds from around £5 to £15, plus Apple EarPods and JVC Gumy in the £10 to £20 range.
- WHSmith at South Kensington tube station. Small selection of wired earbuds, similar pricing.
- Ryman or Tesco Express on Gloucester Road. Usually has generic wired earbuds for under £10.
- Poundland on Kensington High Street. Disposable earbuds for £1 to £3. Not audiophile grade, but fine for a single visit.
There is no vending machine selling headphones inside the museum or at South Kensington tube station.
Pre-download before you arrive
The museum has free Wi-Fi, but it runs through a captive portal, which is friction when you are trying to start a tour. The deeper basement galleries, including the Investigate Centre and parts of the LG Green Zone, also have patchy mobile signal.
Pre-download your audio at home or over hotel Wi-Fi the night before. Put your phone in airplane mode once you arrive to save battery and skip the portal entirely. Our step-by-step walkthrough is at how to download nhm audio guide.
Also pack a power bank. Audio playback plus screen-on time will drain a phone faster than you expect across a three-hour visit.
Quick checklist before you leave home
- Headphones (wired or Bluetooth)
- Charging cable and adapter if needed
- Power bank
- Audio guide pre-downloaded
- Splitter if two people are sharing one phone
That is the hardware side sorted. The audio guide itself is free on SoundCloud, though the experience of using it (no app, no routing, content from 2018) leaves a lot to be desired. Headphones are the easy part.
About the author. Hendrik Schafer is the founder of Musa, an AI-powered audio guide platform used in museums across Europe and the UK. He has spent the past three years studying how visitors actually use audio tours inside major institutions, including the Natural History Museum.
Try Musa free at the Natural History Museum. Our audio guide works offline, supports multiple languages, and answers follow-up questions about any exhibit you are looking at. Download before you visit and listen with the headphones you already own.