Those looking to enjoy a walking tour of historic downtown St. Charles can now experience it in a new way, thanks to an upgraded self-guided program that has been produced by the St. Charles Business Alliance and the St. Charles History Museum.

The 27-stop tour can now be downloaded using the free Travel St. Charles app that is available in both the Apple and Android formats.

Previously, those taking the tour relied on metal signs located outside each of the buildings on the tour to provide information about each location.

Now, according to Jenna Sawicki, executive director of the St. Charles Business Alliance, that information is available through a newly-developed feature which can be read by users right on the app or read out loud to them with narration provided by St. Charles Museum Executive Director Lindsay Judd.

“We developed the Travel St. Charles app less than a year ago and you can use it for all sorts of things,” Sawicki said. “There are business listings or it categorizes various types of food — you can type in ‘Italian’ and it will tell you all the options you have in St. Charles. We now have these tours that are on the app including our historical walking tour which started about five years ago, a collaboration between us and the history museum.”

Sawicki called the new app feature “a revamp — making something digital” in an effort to make the tour more technologically accessible.

“These days if you don’t have something on your phone, it might not be real,” she said. “We added the tour last week. People can see all the landmarks and it’s a way to bring the tour into the 21st century.”

Sawicki said there is no information about the number of people taking the tour each year but thanks to the new addition to the Travel St. Charles app “we’ll be able to track that.”

“We should have that information soon and we’ll be excited to share that information and see what people’s interest is,” she said.

To download the free app, visit the Google Play or the App Store and search for Travel St. Charles.

David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.