Getting the most from a true-crime walk

A CaseWalk is built to get out of your way. You pick a city, open a case, and start walking — the narration finds you at each stop on its own, so you can keep your phone in your pocket and your eyes on the street. There is not much you need to do to enjoy it. But a few small habits make the difference between a walk you half-hear and one that stays with you, and they are all easy to set up before you leave.

Download before you go

The single best thing you can do is download the case while you still have a good connection — at home, on the hotel wifi, before you step out the door. Once it is on your phone, the whole walk works offline. No buffering on a quiet corner, no watching a signal bar, nothing draining your data as you go. It also means the walk holds up in the places where coverage is patchy, which is often exactly where the older, more interesting streets are.

Bring headphones

This is a listening experience, and it rewards good sound. A pair of headphones or earbuds keeps the narration close and clear, lets you hear the detail in the writing, and — just as importantly — keeps the audio to yourself. You will be standing in public places among people going about their day, and a case deserves to be heard privately rather than played out loud. If you are walking with someone, a shared pair or a small splitter lets you both stay in step with the same chapter.

Let the narration trigger itself

You do not need to press play at each stop, and you do not need to keep checking the map. As you reach a location, the chapter that belongs to that place begins on its own. The best way to use a CaseWalk is to trust that and stop managing it — lock the phone, look up, and let the ground bring the story to you. The narration is timed to the pace of walking, not the pace of reading, so it is happy to wait for you to arrive.

Walk at your own pace

There is no clock on this. A case runs somewhere between fifteen minutes and an hour on foot, but that is the walking, not a deadline. Stop when something catches your eye. Read a plaque. Sit on a bench for a moment before the next stop. Between chapters the walk simply waits, and it will pick up again when you move on. Some of the best moments on a walk happen in the pauses, when you are standing still and letting a place settle.

Pause and rewind freely

If your attention drifts — a phone call, a crossing, a shop you wanted to look at — just pause. If a detail lands and you want it again, rewind and hear it a second time. Nothing is lost by stopping, and nothing is spoiled by going back. These controls are there precisely so the walk bends around your day rather than the other way round. A few practical notes:

• Pause any time you need to cross a road or take a call.
• Rewind to catch a name, a date, or a line you want to sit with.
• Take the walk over two visits if you like — it will still be there tomorrow.

Remember you are in a real neighbourhood

This matters more than any tip about batteries or headphones. The places on a CaseWalk are real streets where people live, work, and pass through. Some of them are tied to events that caused real harm to real people. Keep to public ground, keep your voice down, do not linger at private doors or point cameras at people’s windows, and give anyone nearby the same courtesy you would want on your own street. The point of walking a case is understanding, and understanding travels well with good manners.

Then let it do the work

That is really all of it. Download the case, bring headphones, let the narration start itself, walk at whatever pace suits you, pause and rewind without a second thought, and stay mindful of where you are. Do those few things and the walk more or less runs itself — leaving you free to do the only part that matters, which is to be present on the ground where it happened. Open the case, and begin the walk.