Summer has barely started and you’re already tired of playing tour guide for friends and family determined to camp out on your couch? There’s an app for that. For €3.99, and some extra space on their iPhones (Android users miss out), your visitors can don their overly-stuffed fanny packs and I heart Berlin t-shirts and discover the city without your guidance. The BerolinApp promises to give the insider scoop, sending users on a three-hour GPS-navigated classic Berlin route, stretching from Museum Island to Tiergarten. For those with a shorter attention span, a highlights version crams the must-sees into one hour. Dotting around disparate periods in German history without being too confusing, BerolinApp offers a decent overview of the main attractions and monuments, while including too-often overlooked gems like that quaint GDR watchtower south of Potsdamer Platz, or the “other” Holocaust memorial, dedicated to Sinti and Roma, and located just a few hundred metres from its Jewish counterpart near the Brandenburg Gate. Quiz questions and prompts to take pictures help to keep your beloved sightseers engaged throughout, while saving you from searching for answers to painfully specific history questions that you as a local still don’t know the answers to. Yet, despite what could be expected from an app designed by a tour agency called “Berlin like a Local”, BerolinApp remains undoubtedly designed for first-timers, meaning you’ll still be tasked with taking them to actual insider places after work.
Check it out at berlinlikealocal.com
