STREET ART · AROUND THE WORLD
Find the wall. We found the tour.
Peace-line murals in Belfast, the painted staircases of Comuna 13, the East Side Gallery in Berlin, the Wynwood Walls in Miami. Real reviews of the street-art and graffiti walks worth booking, led by the people who know which walls go up next.
Where the wall is the reason to go
Three cities you visit for the walls.
Most places, the street art is a bonus you stumble on. In Belfast, Medellin and Berlin it is the main event: the murals tell the city's story, and a guide who lived it walks you through every panel.
Northern Ireland
Belfast
Nowhere else are the murals the history. A black-cab driver takes you along the Falls and the Shankill, stops at the peace line and the gable ends that turned a divided city into the most-photographed political wall art in the world, and tells you what it was like to grow up between them. You leave understanding the place, not just the paint.
- 1 Belfast: Murals Taxi Tour
- 2 Belfast’s Political Mural Taxi Tour
- 3 Famous 1.5 hour Belfast Murals Tour
Colombia
Medellin
Comuna 13 was the most dangerous neighbourhood on earth; now it is a hillside of murals and outdoor escalators that people fly in to see. A local guide rides the escalators with you, reads the graffiti that tells the story of the turnaround, and the hip-hop and the spray cans are still part of daily life. Few transformations are this visible on a wall.
- 1 Medellin: Comuna 13 Graffiti Tour, Cable Car & Street Food
- 2 Medellín: Comuna 13 Tour with Snacks And Your Own Graffiti
- 3 Medellín: Comuna 13 and Graffiti Guided Tour with a Local
Germany
Berlin
Berlin has been the world capital of the painted wall since one came down. The East Side Gallery turned the longest surviving stretch of the Wall into an open-air museum, and Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain have been a free-for-all of paste-ups and pieces ever since. A guide walks you from the famous Wall sections to the alleys the tour buses miss.
- 1 Berlin: City Street Art Guided Walking Tour
- 2 Berlin: 3-Hour Street Art Tour
- 3 Berlin Street Art Walking Tour – Off The Grid
If you only book one
The street art tour more travellers rave about than any other.
Out of every mural and graffiti walk on the site, this is the one that sends people home telling everyone they know to book it.
The crowd-pleasers
The Most Popular Street Art Tours Right Now
Belfast murals, the Comuna 13 staircases, Berlin's wall art, the Wynwood Walls. The walks travellers are happiest they booked.
Start with a city
The best street art, city by city.
Belfast for the political murals, Lisbon for the giant facades, Miami for the Wynwood Walls. Pick the city you are headed to and we will show you the street art tours worth booking there.
What are you here to see
Murals, graffiti, or gallery walls?
Street art means three very different days out. A mural with a history behind it, a city that repaints itself every week, or a few blocks where the best work is gathered in one place. Pick the kind of wall you came for.
Lisbon
A whole hill for a canvas.
Lisbon paints big. The city commissions giant gable-end facades up the seven hills and lets the rest of the lanes fill in with paste-ups and stencils. A guide walks you from the famous Bordalo II animal sculptures and the Calcada da Gloria murals to the back-street pieces the funicular crowds roll straight past, reading who painted what along the way.
See the best Lisbon street art tours →Belfast
The murals that tell a city's story.
A black-cab mural tour is Belfast's signature: a driver who grew up here takes you along the Falls Road and the Shankill, stops at the peace line and the International Wall, and explains the gable-end paintings that turned the Troubles into the most-photographed political street art anywhere. It is a history lesson you can reach out and touch.
See the best Belfast street art tours →Berlin
A wall came down and the paint never stopped.
Berlin has been the world capital of the painted wall since 1989. The East Side Gallery turned the longest surviving stretch of the Wall into a kilometre of open-air murals, and Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain became a free-for-all of paste-ups, stencils and giant pieces. A guide walks you from the famous Wall art to the courtyards and alleys the tour buses never reach.
See the best Berlin street art tours →London, East End
Shoreditch repaints itself every week.
The walls around Brick Lane and Shoreditch are the busiest canvas in Europe: a Banksy stencil here, a giant commissioned mural there, a fresh paste-up over last week's piece. A working artist walks you through it, reads the tags the way a local reads a newspaper, and shows you the spots that will look completely different by next month.
- 1 London: Street Art and Graffiti Guided Walking Tour
- 2 London Bike Tour: Landmarks, Secret Gems, Pub Stop & Street Art
- 3 Shoreditch Street Art Tour London
By experience
How close do you want to get to the wall?
A daylight wander under the Lisbon facades. A Shoreditch walk with an artist who reads the tags for you. A Comuna 13 tour where you put a can to a Medellin wall yourself. Pick how hands-on you want your day to be.
On foot
Lisbon, at a wander.A daylight walk through the painted lanes of the old hills, stopping under the giant gable-end facades while a guide explains who painted what and why the city pays for some of it. The gentle way in: all eyes up, nothing technical.
Behind the scenes
London, with someone who paints.A working artist walks you through Shoreditch and Brick Lane, reads the tags and throw-ups the way a local reads a newspaper, and shows you which pieces will be gone by next week. The walls change faster than the map can keep up.
Can in hand
Medellin, and you spray a wall.Up the Comuna 13 escalators with a local crew, the story of how the murals turned the neighbourhood around, then a can in your hand for a piece of your own. The full immersion: history, hip-hop and your tag on a Medellin wall.
Miami
A whole district painted to be walked.
Wynwood took a grid of blank Miami warehouses and turned every wall into a commissioned mural. The Wynwood Walls anchor it, but the real fun is the streets around them, a fresh piece on every corner and a new one up by the time you circle back. A guide or a golf-cart tour covers the lot and tells you which artist did what, so you read the district instead of just photographing it.
See all 24 Miami street art tours →By city
Pick a city and follow the walls.
Belfast for the murals with a history. Lisbon for the giant facades. London for the Shoreditch walls. Miami for the Wynwood blocks. Berlin for the wall and the gallery. Mexico City for the muralism.
More cities
More cities with walls worth a weekend.
Paris for the Belleville pieces, Naples for the Spanish Quarter murals, Athens for the crisis-era street art, Mexico City for the giant muralism. The rest of the map, ready when you are.
Three cities, three kinds of wall
Pick a city, plan the day around the art.
The Spanish Quarter in Naples, the crisis-era stencils of Athens, the shutters and back lanes of Barcelona. Three cities, three very different ways to spend a day chasing murals.
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