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Accessible and Step-Free Tours
Most "accessible" walking routes are ordinary walking routes with a label on them. A standard pedestrian router will happily send you up a flight of steps, over a high kerb or along a gravel track, because as far as it is concerned those are all walkable.
Choosing the assisted option here switches to a different routing engine entirely — one with a wheelchair costing that avoids steps, prefers smooth surfaces and treats kerbs as obstacles rather than scenery. It produces a genuinely different line on the map, and sometimes a noticeably longer one, because the direct route is not always passable.
Opens with Assisted already selected as your way of getting around.
What you can ask it to avoid
These are separate from the routing mode and stack with it, so you can ask a walking route to avoid steep hills without needing full wheelchair routing — useful for anyone walking with a stick, a pushchair, a heart condition or simply a bad knee.
Cities where this matters most
Some of the most-visited historic centres are the hardest to move through. Venice has around 400 stepped bridges. Rome's sampietrini cobbles are rounded and uneven. Edinburgh's Old Town is built on stairs. Lisbon and Porto are genuinely steep. Each city guide has a terrain note saying plainly what the surfaces and gradients are, rather than leaving you to find out on the day:
- Venice — terrain and surfaces
- Rome — terrain and surfaces
- Edinburgh — terrain and surfaces
- Lisbon — terrain and surfaces
- Porto — terrain and surfaces
- Vienna — terrain and surfaces
- Copenhagen — terrain and surfaces
- Amsterdam — terrain and surfaces
- Munich — terrain and surfaces
- Singapore — terrain and surfaces
Setting the pace
Time at each stop is yours to set — minimal, moderate, or twenty minutes and more — and the total length of the tour is a constraint the route is built to respect. Setting a leisurely pace and longer stops produces a shorter route with more time standing still, which is often exactly what is wanted.
Questions
How is the accessible route actually different?
It is produced by a different routing engine using a wheelchair costing, which avoids steps and kerbs and prefers smooth surfaces. A standard pedestrian router treats steps as ordinary walking and will route you over them.
Can I avoid hills without using wheelchair routing?
Yes. Avoid steep hills, avoid stairs, minimise uneven surfaces and avoid busy roads are separate options you can apply to any mode.
Does it know about individual buildings being accessible?
No, and it would be wrong to claim otherwise. It routes the streets and paths between stops; whether a particular museum has a lift is something to check with that venue.