An audio tour or audio guide provides a recorded spoken commentary, normally through a handheld device, to a visitor attraction such as a museum or an exhibition. They are also available for self-guided tours of outdoor locations, or as a part of an organised tour. It provides background, context, and information on the things being viewed. Audio guides are often in multilingual versions and can be made available in different ways. Some of the more elaborate tours may include original music and interviews. They are traditionally rented on the spot, more recently downloaded from the Internet, or available via the mobile phone network. Some audio guides are free or included in the entrance fee, others have to be purchased separately.

Willem Sandberg, director of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam from 1945 to 1962, pioneered the world's first museum audio tours. When invented in 1952, the developers were drawn by its unique potential to mediate an experience individually controllable by each visitor, which was content-rich, was personal to them, was available at any time, and suited learning styles not served by catalog, text panel, or label.

Sandberg's ambulatory lectures were delivered through a closed-circuit shortwave radio broadcasting system in which the amplified audio output of an analog playback tape recorder served as a broadcast station, and transmission was via a loop aerial fixed around the gallery or galleries. Identical lectures in Dutch, French, English, and German were recorded onto magnetic tapes, broadcast in turn through the aerial, and picked up by visitors through a portable radio receiver with headphones, when inside the loop.

The system was such that all visitors with a receiver could only hear a specific piece of commentary at any time; hence, groups of visitors would move through the galleries and look at exhibits as if guided by an invisible force, in complete synchronicity.

Audio tours are often used to provide visitors with additional information about exhibits, artifacts, or artworks.

Audio tours may include music, sound effects, and character voices to create a more entertaining experience. Some tours feature interactivity, for instance by playing audio files in response to visitors interacting with an exhibit.

Some audio tours are designed to be both educational and entertaining. They may feature, for example, voice actors playing characters inside of a painting instead of plainly explaining the history behind it, or by synchronizing the audio to external lights and videos to visually highlight the parts being explained.

A multimedia electronic guide is a device specially designed to provide audio, visual or textual content to museum visitors with or without user interaction. It may also provide alternative content corresponding to different personal preferences. It may include accessories such as headphones, a digital pen and displays with LEDs or LCD screens.