Newport, Rhode Island

Newport has always known how to put on a show. In the Gilded Age, Vanderbilts and Astors descended on Aquidneck Island each summer with armies of French chefs and English butlers, competing through sheer architectural excess for the most coveted seat in American society. The cottages they left behind – Marble House, The Breakers, Rosecliff – are palaces in all but name.

But Newport had been keeping secrets since 1639. The colonial quarter along Thames Street was once one of early America's five great commercial ports, rivalling Boston on maritime trade and a quietly radical commitment to religious tolerance. Touro Synagogue, the oldest in the country, stands a few blocks from the White Horse Tavern.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours move between both Newports. There's the gilded one on Bellevue Avenue, where the Cliff Walk threads between cliff-top mansions and the Atlantic. And there's the colonial one that predates the wealth and quietly endures beneath it. Put your earbuds in and let the island speak.