Welcome to Tours by Foot, offering free self-guided tours, pay-what-you-wish New York walking tours, and specialty ticketed tours including food, but also bike, audio, and free self-guided walks.
We are a real company and not a marketplace. We provide a platform for licensed, local, freelance tour guides to lead tours at no upfront costs.
On our name-your-own-price tours, you determine what a tour was worth, if anything, after the tour.
ExcellentFree Tours by Foot4.9★★★★★ Based on 2426 reviews fromSee all reviews review us onmaayan F. ★★★★★ We took the Brooklyn Dumbo tour with Jon. Highly recommend! Jon is a great guide, super knowledgeable.Cori L. ★★★★★ Jon, our guide to SOHO, Little Italy & Chinatown was totally awesome. He certainly had a wealth of history to share with us & was very knowledgeable & had a great sense of humor. He certainly educated us well with his stories. Learned a lot about Manhattan and his one advice is so true-gotta look out for the bikers as they ride in both directions FAST!!!! Highly recommend Jon!!!Gabriella L. ★★★★★ John is a great tour guide and we had an amazing time on our SOHO, Chinatown, and Little Italy tourHe was very informative, patient, and answered any questions we had! Would love to do another tour with himKaren H. ★★★★★ We greatly enjoyed our tour of the Brooklyn Bridge, B'klyn Heights & DUMBO. John was extremely knowledgeable & entertaining, a great story-teller! I am a long-time New Yorker (I took the tour with an out-of-town friend), I learned a great deal about my city! Highly recommended!Ildiko T. ★★★★★ As I had a great experience with the company in 2022 I decided to do several ones this time I am in town. John was a passionate and fantastic guide with a general curiosity and interest towards our countries and he was very knowledgable about politics, economy and so on. Moreover he is very keen on history ancient and modern and has funny stories with some today’s celebrities too. The Brooklyn Bridge and Brooklyn Heights tour is really worth it: the three hours just flew right by.Abhi ★★★★★ Reviewing the two different tours and guides I experienced on same day:1. Greenwich village, High Line and Chelsea tour by Kassi: Kassi was extremely engaging with the group. She went above and beyond to constantly help all attendees with directions, even when two attendees who were late and constantly calling Kassi’s phone in midst of the tour despite the email instructions not to do so. Learnt a great deal from her about Greenwich and how the area developed over the long years, her knowledge is particularly rich on the infrastructure development side as she talked about almost all the buildings in the area, she has an ocean of first hand Greenwich experience being living in NYC since her early 20s.2. Twilight tour of Brooklyn bridge, Brooklyn heights and Dumbo by John Gallagher: John’s has a contagious laugh, friendly and is extremely charming. He shared his wealth of knowledge about how Brooklyn bridge was built by the Irish, about the bridge’s materials, its history and comparison with Manhattan bridge. He was able to handle a large group of around 20-25 people with ease which had a range of aged 10-76 year old folks. His knowledge is particularly rich about Dumbo’s evolving housing prices and Brooklyn heights church and neighborhood history during the time when slavery was still prevalent in USA.I love the fact that FTBF’s tour guides are all long tenured NYC residents as they are able to share quite specific and intricate facts about buildings and establishments which would be hard to learn elsewhere.Adele D. ★★★★★ Just took the Twilight Walking Tour over the Brooklyn Bridge with John Gallagher. I highly recommend him and this tour. What a wonderful experience. John is the best and so full of information.I will highly recommend this to all of my friends!Jan D. ★★★★★ Great twilight Brooklyn Bridge tour led by John Gallagher. Would do any tour he led! Engaging, educational, full of fun and I suspect little-known facts. Enjoyed by the grandparents and the teenager and that is not always an easy combo! Highly recommended!Dawn E. ★★★★★ We loved our Greenwich Village Tour with Renee and highly recommend. Renee was a lot of fun and very engaging, and we really enjoyed learning about the neighbourhood and the history.We did the Greenwich Food Tour with Lori on our previous visit and will definitely use Free Tours by Foot next time we are in New York (or anywhere else they operate).Elili A. ★★★★★ My partner and I took part in the on foot tour of Harlem led by Ron. While the complex and wonderful history of Harlem was remarkable all on its own, our tour was only exemplified by our excellent guide Ron. A very knowledgeable and kind man whose love for Harlem was very infectious. While I loved the tour overall, the Harlem locals were by far my favorite part. A place filled to the brim with larger than life personalities many locals would stop by and share their knowledge and experience, something you certainly wouldn’t get in other parts of New York. It was all so wonderful and Harlem is far from all those negative stereotypes people commonly attach to it. A vibrant and welcoming community, who deserve your kindness and respect.Thank you so much Ron.Susan A. ★★★★★ We are from Australia and did the Harlem walk with Lady Altovise yesterday and today Highline, Meatpackers and Little Island.Both were of such a high standard - very informed on the topic and great delivery. Lady Altovise if a priceless entertainer whilst also delivering some very confronting history we all should know more about.Ron today was also very knowledgeable, approachable and entertaining.Thank you again to all of you - I was recommended this company from a friend in Brisbane Australia and will certainly be spreading the word myself now also.Thank you again.Martín Z. ★★★★★ The tour was very enjoyable, lead by Lori, who spoke clearly to everyone and with a lot of interesting information about the many historical events of the areas we went through. The 3-hour tour started in the city hall, we walked along the Brooklyn bridge and ended up in Brooklyn itself with some incredible views of Manhattan and, of course, Brooklyn. We had a stop for restrooms in the middle. I would highly recommend it for anyone interested in history and views of Manhattan and Brooklyn.Marlon Brandoid (. ★★★★★ We had a really great tour with John.He is an expert for NYC and specially for Brooklyn. It was really fun and filled with a lot of good information.Fabio ★★★★★ We did the 6h tour through New York and loved it! Our guide Garret did a phenomenal job. He was funny and knew so much about the city, which is why we learned a lot!! Garret kept us motivated throughout the six hours and explained everything in a nice and easy way. This is way the long tour was not too exhausting. We would do it again a 100 percent!Kamile L. ★★★★★ I had two tours one of 9/11 memorial, chinatown, little italy and soho with Joey. Other one was with John Gallagher on sunset Brooklyn bridge tour. Both tours was very informative and interesting. I was amazed by both guide’s professionalism. Especially want to mention John Gallagher he is the nicest, very funny and great storyteller. In this tour he created so welcoming atmosphere and give attention to all of the group members. Once again thank you keep doing these tours they are truly unforgettable experience 😍🏙️John and Rosann G. ★★★★★ Our tour of Grand Central Station was both informative and enjoyable, thanks to our tour guide, John Gallagher. John was very enthusiastic to share his knowledge about the history of the station. Knowing facts about Grand Central Station will make my future visits there more fun as I recollect what I learned on the tour.Ashley R. ★★★★★ First trip to NYC and we did 2 tours. I would recommend to everyone to do the twilight tour of the Brooklyn Bridge. John was fantastic and the views were majestic. We also did the Chinatown/Little Italy food tour and it was great! Food was reasonable and Kassie was knowledgeable about the area.Kerry S. ★★★★★ Our tour guide John, is the best tour guide in New York. He is articulate regarding the knowledge he robustly conveys to us … and most of all he enjoys answering the group’s many questions. Don’t miss out, book a free tour by foot.Claire O. ★★★★★ We went on two tours - both led by John. One was the Brooklyn tour and the other was Soho, Little Italy etc. We loved them both. We found that John had a lovely way with everyone - he went out of his way to find out a bit about everyone and have short chats with everyone as we were on the move. The information was pitched at just the right level for us - very interesting. The pace was good too - not too slow but no one was left behind.Angela H ★★★★★ 5/5 tour experience. Our tour guide was John Gallagher and he was excellent, very engaged and funny and offered great tips for good restaurants to go to after the tour was done.Clare M. ★★★★★ We joined the brooklyn Bridge, brooklyn heights/DUMBO at twilight tour with John and had the best time. John's knowledge was incredible, but far more, he entertained and brought us a truly unique experience.. highly, highly recommend. Many thanks John!!Elizabeth G. ★★★★★ My family and I did the Meatpacking/Little Island/Highline tour this weekend and had an amazing time. Even though I live in NYC, I learned so much during our tour! I am a big fan of the Gilded Age TV show and loved in particular learning about the Astors, Vanderbilts, etc and their influence on the neighborhoods and various famous buildings across NYC. The tour guide, Ron, was amazing. He was so knowledgeable and able to answer any question that was asked. He kept things fun and engaging. He has great energy and made us all laugh along the way. It was a great experience. Looking forward to going on another tour with Ron again in the future!Yasmin W. ★★★★★ John Gallagher the guide was great. We took the Soho/Little Italy/China town tour. He had so many fascinating stories about NY's history, culture, art, and more. He was very patient and gave us a lot of extra time. The group was very friendly, also because John was so friendly and curious to know everyone. Me and my 10 year-old had a great experience, that will not be forgotten for a long time.John T. ★★★★★ Did the Soho, Little Italy, Chinatown tour with Lori Pickhardt. Very interesting tour and Lori was an excellent tour guide. Would high recommend this tour and any tour that Lori does.Mo I. ★★★★★ Fun and informative.ThanksUBALDO C. ★★★★★ Marion D. ★★★★★ I did a the DUMBO / Brooklyn tour today with John and it was just perfect. The right amount of History, facts, figures, fun stories. John is a natural speaker and makes us at ease very quickly and easily, talking with everyone. The atmosphere was just great. Thanks for this tour ! I highly recommendSofia Y. ★★★★★ Great tour!! Wonderful tips!!John was a lovely host ! Definitely was the best tour we took at NYCAnita B. ★★★★★ Great way to tour the city. Our group was a group of 6 so we payed At reservation but smaller groups pay at the end for what they think it is worth.Elliott ★★★★★ We loved our tour of Grand Central Terminal with our guide John Gallagher! He was so informative and funny, I highly recommend taking a walking tour of NYC you won't regret it!Melissa R. ★★★★★ John was an excellent guide, so good I took 2 tours with him! Grand Central was full of hidden surprises I never would have known about. And the SoHo, Chinatown, Little Italy was filled with food and facts. Loved itGregory L. ★★★★★ My girlfriend and I did 3 walking tours this weekend with John Gallagher as our tour guide. We kept booking tour based on our wonderful experience with him as our guide. John is incredibly knowledgeable regarding all things New York!!! His humour and charm made the history of NYC come alive and he was incredibly passionate about making the tour enjoyable for everyone. He spend a lot of time chatting with you, getting to know you, and making the tour truly memorable. These tours with John were definitely the highlight of the trip. I will definitely book with Free Tours by Foot again and recommend the tour and John to all those I know travelling to New York. Again John, thank you so much for making our trip so memorable!!!!Sascha M ★★★★★ Tour à pieds le soir de Dumbo et pont de Brooklyn avec John.Très bonne expérience, très intéressant, je recommande.Ganesh ★★★★★ Had a great time. Lovely walk with lots of info about the history of each placehenya S. ★★★★★ christine S. ★★★★★ We did the Soho, Little Italy China Town tour with John Gallagher back in March (it’s taken a while to get round to reviewing!) What a fantastic way to get under the skin of the city. John is a brilliant guide - really knowledgeable with great stories and a fantastic way of telling them. It was like being shown around by a very well informed friend. The walk was perfectly paced for a mixed group with delicious snack stops and a bathroom break. I can’t recommend highly enough and will be looking out for FTBF wherever I go.Alexis F. ★★★★★ Took a bunch of tours. Garrett was funny ;). John and Kathleen (cassie) were very nice ^^. I had a great time and learned cool stories about NY from engaging speakers! Please go to ftbf tours. You don't have to pay a lot of money.Piotr R. ★★★★★ Harlem walking tour with Ryan was an unforgettable experience. The sites at Harlem exemplified the complex, fascinating and mostly tragic history of Harlem immigrants. Ryan's narrative was interesting and enjoyable. It was definitely one of the most interesting walking tours we have ever joined.Mireya A. ★★★★★ These tours are amazing!! Jon & Garrett are super informative but also are great and keep you intrigued with the history of the city! My first time in the city was scary but being on these tours, it allowed me to become familiar with the areas and I enjoyed it!Jana K. ★★★★★ I took the New York One Day tour on Tuesday at 10 am with guide Garrett, and it was fantastic! He was incredibly funny, engaging, and knowledgeable, sharing numerous stories about 9/11 and US history. I would definitely recommend the tour!Matt and Kim S. ★★★★★ Jon was awesome! What a fun afternoon being guided through the lower east side history and tastes. Can’t recommend it enough!Gert-Jan van N. ★★★★★ We did a Brooklyn Bridge walking tour and it was very nice. The tourguide was very informative and could tell stories in a nice way. I would definitely recommend taking at least one tour with this organisation when in NYC!Jolynnae R. ★★★★★ Update April 2024: My daughter and I went on the Lower East Side food tour with Jon N last week. This is the best tour company, especially the food tours, because you get so much history and info about the neighborhood. Jon is polite, professional, and FUN! Pay attention, some of his dry subtle humor may slip by you. 😉 Take cash in small bills, wear comfortable shoes and clothes appropriate for the weather. AND tip your tour guide!This is the 3rd tour I have taken with the company and the first with Jon N as the tour guide. This was the Sunday night 9/11 Memorial and Brooklyn Bridge tour. Jon was outstanding in his knowledge of the events and construction of the new World Trade Center. I remember the day clearly and have been to the memorial site 3 times, but there were younger people on this tour that could have been hearing this information for the first time. Jon explained at the beginning of the tour that he would be very open and honest about what happened and he did an excellent job in dealing with a difficult series of events. At the end of the tour, Jon stayed to take pictures. I should have taken him up of his offer to help us get back to the proper subway station because I did get lost and wandered around before finding a station with an A or C train. My error, not Jon's!Chalece A. ★★★★★ Ciara M. ★★★★★ Great tour with John! We really enjoyed his stories!Pasquale S. ★★★★★ My guide was John Gallagher, who toured us in Little Italy, Soho, Chinatown. We had a beautiful experience, John was interesting and entertaining, and also managed to deal with politeness and savoir faire with an annoying lady who disturbed us while we were visiting Soho. The only thing I would change is that I would have liked to walk longer (the tour has many short stops so you don't walk that much), but I guess it's very subjective.Very Recommended!Gucci G. ★★★★★ Great tour with a lovely guide. We had so much fun exploring Brooklyn Bridge and Dumbo!Robert S. ★★★★★ John was an amazing guide in our Soho, Little Italy, Chinatown tour.Remington B. ★★★★★ Cannot state enough good things about Ryan and the Harlem walking tour. Signed up for this one hoping to see a bit of Harlem, and learn a bit about the area, but we were blown away by how much history Ryan shared. His passion for the Harlem area is evident and infectious. Tour was very educational and very enjoyable!Rita P. ★★★★★ Wir hatten in drei Tagen drei Touren gebucht: die erste ging mit Garett durch SoHo, China Town und Little Italy. Gerettet war unglaublich unterhaltsam, hatte Spaß an dem was er tut und uns sehr viel Geschichte aber auch Kurioses berichten können.Die beiden anderen Touren gingen mit Renee nach Brooklyn, DUMBO und Brooklyn Heights und am nächsten Tag furchtbar Greenwich Village.Renee hat ein unfassbares Wissen über historische Ereignisse und weiß diese mit Humor zu kombinieren. Man kann ihr sehr gut zuhören und es bleibt eine Menge (nicht alles) an Informationen hängen.Beide Tourguides haben neben ihren geschichtlichen Kenntnissen viele Geschichten über die besuchten Orte parat, ob es sich um Filmkulissen handelt oder auch, wo man die besten Dumplings in China Town oder die beste Pizza, Schokolade und/oder Eis, Cupcakes in Greenwich bekommt.Wir haben uns nicht eine einzige Sekunde der jeweiligen Tour gelangweilt sondern alles Wissen und die Geschichten aufgesogen.Klar ist: bei unserem nächsten NY Besuch werden wir auf jeden Fall wieder free tours by foot machen😁
The pay-what-you-wish model applies to small groups (usually up to 5). If your group is larger, a prepayment is required as per our group policy.
Book a tour on a specific date or jump below for the full weekly calendar.
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Weekly Tour Schedule
WALKING TOURS
This is a city of neighborhoods and we focus on tours designed to show you what the Big Apple is made of.
Walking tours are our specialty, and we offer a number of daily and weekly, guided, pay-what-you-like walking tours of NYC.
You can browse our tours by clicking the links below, scrolling through our public tours calendar, or going to our booking page to see what we have available.
Some tours focus on single neighborhoods, and some combine parts of several.
Food and night tours are detailed in their respective sections, but you can find them on the calendar below.
Our New York tours are also great for meeting fellow travelers and making new friends.
Our guests come from all over the world, which means that the questions asked by our tour guides reflect many different perspectives and contribute to more enriching experiences for our guests.
Since we do not offer any of our food tours on a daily basis, we have also included the food tour schedules of other companies that we trust.
AUDIO AND SELF-GUIDED TOURS
If you can’t fit any of our tours into your schedule, check out our anytime audio tours, where you will find several of our most popular tours narrated by Tours by Foot tour guides.
These audio tours go deeper than our self-guided maps and allow you to enjoy our guided tours whenever they fit your schedule. We are constantly adding new audio tours to our collection.
Listen to a sample of our Lower Manhattan Tour (an archaeological site of old New Amsterdam)
Available Tours:
Central Park
Lower Manhattan
9/11 Memorial and World Trade Center
Greenwich Village
Times Square
Food Tour of Greenwich Village
SoHo
Little Italy and Nolita
The Brooklyn Bridge (in both English and Spanish versions)
The High Line
Midtown Manhattan
Grand Central Terminal
Harlem
A view of the street from the High Line. Image source: Pixabay user Bev.
New York doesn't have to be expensive if you know how to avoid paying too much.
We know a thing or two about saving money from our pay-what-you-like guided walking tours, audio tours, and free self-guided tours.
We don't like to toot our own horn too much, but if you're wondering just how much travelers and locals enjoy our free walking tours, you need look no further than our New York City Travel Tips group on Facebook.
As you can see, Gina shares her experience with us and some pictures from the tour. This is really helpful for getting a sense of what to expect when you join us!
Gina notes something quite important: we usually don't have a limit on how much you should tip. Any tips are welcome.
If you're curious about our food tours, Yvonne offers several pictures that give you a pretty good idea of the kinds of food you can expect to enjoy.
Our audio tours are also quite popular, and Kelly notes that the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tour was particularly useful.
If you can't manage to join us for a fully guided tour, these audio guides are an excellent alternative that can allow you to explore at your own pace.
Please read our New York City Travel Tips group on Facebook for even more opinions and advice about our tours.
And much, much more
Join our free FTBF travel community! As a thank you, you'll receive our free itinerary planner.
