Wikiway. A tourist guide with Wikipedia

Last updated on 18 August 2024

Wikiway is a free and open source mobile app that will serve you as a tour guide all over the world. Ideal for personal or educational use. I'm a fan of this app and I'll explain why.

Wikiway is a one-of-a-kind tourism app that uses Wikipedia articles to help you discover places around you, in France or abroad. It can replace all other guides while incorporating Wikipedia’s impressive encyclopedic knowledge into your pocket. »

Tourism with Wikipedia in your pocket

This is the simple and brilliant idea of Wikiway. Offer a mobile application for iOs and Android that will geolocate you and offer you all the articles related to the place where you are. It’s magical and it works all over the world but also … downstairs.

Wikiway uses geolocation to offer all Wikipedia articles related to where you are, within a radius of 50 km. It’s like having a complete and constantly updated Wikipedia tourist guide in your pocket!

The app works all over the world, but also close to you. This will allow your students to discover the history of their city, the streets, monuments and famous people who were born there.

An educational tool to explore local and world heritage. As a teacher, Wikiway offers you a wide range of educational opportunities:

• Organize interactive school outings using Wikiway as a guide
• Make your students discover the local heritage in a fun way
• Create thematic paths around your establishment
• Encourage your students to contribute to Wikipedia by creating articles about their region

The aim is to allow users to discover the world around them through Wikipedia articles.

The idea of Wikiway sprouted in the mind of Alexandre Vigne, the director of the Bivilink company, during a trip on the A10 motorway of the Châteaux de la Loire in 2020. Looking at Chambord, Cheverny, Blois, Amboise or Chenonceau, a question came to mind: Why not use Wikipedia's informative resources to enrich our knowledge of these historic places?

In 2021, a partnership was concluded with theWikimedia France Association, and last year, the first version of the Wikiway app was put on the market. An update is expected to be published in autumn.

A reliable and updated Wikipedia tourist guide

How does Wikiway ensure the quality of the tourist information on offer? The quality of the tourist information provided by Wikiway is ensured by Wikipedia's collaborative process and editorial standards, which promote the creation and maintenance of reliable and up-to-date content. This is clear and if there are errors, users are responsible for reporting them for prompt correction.

Wikiway was developed in partnership with Wikimedia France and approved by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is a free, open source and privacy-friendly tool.

Personally, I tend to place more trust in this kind of transparent approach than in guides that are not known if there are trade agreements hidden behind the advice. Maybe I'm wrong.

Share your itineraries and tips

The app allows you to share your itineraries with your friends. Convenient to plan a group visit or share your discoveries with your friends. 

By sharing itineraries, you can discover new places recommended by your friends or make them discover yours. This enriches the travel experience by incorporating the recommendations and experiences of others.

The route sharing functionality is very simple. Shared routes can be viewed on OpenStreetMap. 

The Wikiway app not only provides a practical tool to explore individually, but also a social platform to share and discover places of interest with others.

With over 2,532,706 articles written by volunteer contributors, Wikipedia is the perfect place to grow. Why not take advantage of this wealth to explore the tourist places?

How to use Wikiway to explore where you are

Using Wikiway on your smartphone or tablet is very simple.

Step 1: Download the application Wikiway

Wikiway is available on Android and the App Store. The app is free of charge and respects your data by not collecting it. You can download the current version by scanning the QR code on the Wikiway website.

Step 2: Explore your environment

Once you have downloaded the app, you can start exploring your environment within a 50 km radius. You can do this in French or in one of the 100 languages available.

Step 3: Choose a theme

Wikiway distinguishes itself from other tourism apps by allowing you to discover a place differently through 14 different categories. You can select all the themes on the interface and be surprised by the content proposals, or you can select a theme from the 14 proposed themes.

And if your location is undocumented, you can start creating a new article in this Wikipedia-assisted global travel guide. You can create it respecting the 5 founding principles of Wikipedia.

The Wikiway app covers 14 different topics, allowing you to discover places according to your interests and desires, whether they are places of culture, natural areas or birthplaces of celebrities, among others.

How to use Wikiway in class?

Wikiway turns every school outing into an educational journey! Whether for a museum visit, a nature excursion or a school trip, this Wikipedia tourist guide app will enrich your students’ learning experience.

Here are some ideas for educational activities with Wikiway. Feel free to share your comments:

1. Historical treasure hunt
   Create a treasure hunt around your property using Wikiway. Students must find specific historical places and answer questions based on the information provided by the application.
2. Project "Local People"
   Have students use the Celebrity Birthplaces feature to identify important characters born in your area. They can then create presentations about these personalities and their impact on local or national history.
3. Literary journey
   Create an itinerary based on the life of a local author or the places mentioned in a literary work studied in class. Students follow this path and discover the connections between literature and real places.
4. Study of the local ecosystem
   Use Wikiway's "Natural Spaces" category to explore the different natural environments around your school. Students can study biodiversity, geology and human impact on these spaces.
5. Virtual travel log
   Have students plan a virtual trip to an area of their choice using Wikiway. They must create an itinerary, select points of interest and write a travel log based on the information provided by the application.
6. Content creation Wikipedia
   Identify local places or events that are not yet listed on Wikipedia. Guide students in researching and writing articles to contribute to the encyclopedia, following Wikipedia’s editorial principles.

The application was developed by Bivilink with the support of theWikimedia France Association and has received approval from the US Wikimedia Foundation. It is available in several languages. Wikiway is distinguished by features such as a search engine, a retro mode for archiving page views, voice playback of content, a route on OpenStreetMap, as well as a location map website called Wikiway map.

That's a great idea. The app is free, open source and respects your privacy. So don't miss it.