Audiovisual Tour Guides
WASHINGTON D.C.
AUDIO / VISUAL WALKING TOURS
A SELF-GUIDED TOUR APP
Next Generation Washington D.C. Audio / Visual Tours
The BARDEUM Mobile App combines the magic of history, travel and storytelling by allowing visitors to not just see the sites, but step inside their stories.
Enhance Your Travels with Educational & Entertaining Audio Storytelling Tours
Our name is a mash-up of the travelling BARD & the musEUM and our goal is enhance your travels through high quality educational & entertaining storytelling via our unique audio and visual tour app.
Written by Award-Winning & Bestselling Writers, Journalists, and Historians.
These self-guided audio / visual tours are written by the world's best storytellers - including two-time Pulitzer-Prize finalist H.W. Brands, Pulitzer-Prize winner, Edward J. Larson, and multiple New York Times Bestselling Author Eric Blehm.
Step Inside True Stories and Events
Step inside the story of true events to gain a greater understanding of the meaning and import of America's historical Monuments and Memorials. Our D.C. sites include:
JEFFERSON MEMORIAL
KOREAN WAR MEMORIAL
FDR MEMORIAL
VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL
WASHINGTON MONUMENT
WORLD WAR II MEMORIAL
With many more to come!
LET'S MAKE YOUR TRAVELS HISTORIC!
“A masterfully-told account of astonishing heroism. Captivates from the start. Hearing of the grit, determination, and bravery of these soldiers while walking along the names etched into the Vietnam Veterans Memorial offers a far greater understanding of their sacrifice. Prepare to be immersed!"
Adam Makos, New York Times bestselling author of Spearhead.
VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL
"A spellbinding and moving story—one of the most harrowing accounts of war I have ever encountered.”
Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God.
KOREAN WAR MEMORIAL
“With beautiful writing and a deep understanding of her subject matter, Laura Kamoie brings life to the young, conflicted, idealist, Thomas Jefferson, in the momentous summer of 1776, when he is asked to write the document that would change his life and forge a new nation.”
Stephanie Dray, New York Times bestselling author of Lily of the Nile & The Women of Chateau Lafayette
JEFFERSON MEMORIAL
Testimonials
Washington, D.C. Tours
In 1790, the United States Congress established a 100-square-mile territory to serve as the permanent seat of the federal government. The area was named Washington - after the country’s first elected president, and Columbia – the name given the female personification of the Americas by early Europeans after the discovery of a “fourth” continent in the 15th Century.
Today, Washington D.C. is home to great food, art, and amazing cultural attractions - including the numerous iconic and inspiring statues, monuments and memorials that offer glimpses into America’s History.
Washington D.C. Audio Tours
The two-mile stretch of green running down the center of the U.S. Capital is sometimes referred to as America’s front yard. For over 200 years the National Mall has stood to commemorate and inspire. The important memorials and museums that line the park represent a celebrated cultural history of an experimental democracy and its struggle to endure.
It proved to be the ideal place for BARDEUM to begin telling the stories of America. Our goal is to offer visitors far greater meaning and understanding as they tour these monuments & memorials made of metal and stone. Join us and step inside their stories…
Jump Directly to a Tour
The Jefferson Memorial sits on the southern rim of the Tidal Basin in East Potomac Park in a direct line from the White House. The Imperial Danby white marble temple was inspired by two of Thomas Jefferson’s own designs: Monticello, his home, and the Rotunda at the University of Virginia, which he modeled after the Pantheon in Rome. The interior includes inscribed quotes from Jefferson’s famous writings – including The Declaration of Independence - the subject of our BARDEUM experience To Begin the World Again.
In May of 1776, at the age of 33, Thomas Jefferson was one of the youngest members of the Second Continental Congress. A political up-and-comer from Virginia, he was appointed to a small committee tasked with drafting a document to declare that the American colonies were to be free and independent states - absolved from all allegiance to the British crown.
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The committee, which included John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, elected Jefferson as the principal drafter of this declaration of independence. Over the days that followed, Jefferson was largely sequestered away writing in his boardinghouse. His quill scratched the paper, black ink unwinding from the tip in an expression of the American mind against the tyranny of Britain.
Jefferson firmly believed in the necessity of ending slavery, yet knew his own hands were stained with his own tyranny. Could he incorporate abolition into this declaration?
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Step inside the story of the creation of a document that would shape not only America’s history, but that of the World’s.
LAURA KAMOIE
AUTHOR
American Historian and New York Times bestselling author of America's First Daughter & My Dear Hamilton.
BRADFORD HASTINGS
NARRATOR
Multi-Award Winning Professional Voice Actor and Audiobook narrator.
“Laura Kamoie draws upon her deep knowledge and appreciation of Thomas Jefferson's unique contributions and deep contradictions in this lively and informative depiction of his role in shaping the foundation of the United States of America. More than that though, she shows us in a moving coda how Jefferson's work on the Declaration of Independence has inspired generations of people seeking the blessings of liberty ever since.”
Lars Hedbor, author of the Tales from a Revolution series
“With beautiful writing and a deep understanding of her subject matter, Laura Kamoie brings life to the young, conflicted, idealist, Thomas Jefferson, in the momentous summer of 1776, when he is asked to write the document that would change his life and forge a new nation.”
Stephanie Dray, New York Times bestselling author of Lily of the Nile & The Women of Chateau Lafayette
Testimonials
To Begin the World Again
The Korean War Memorial, which was dedicated in West Potomac Park in 1995, has become an enormously popular attraction, averaging more than three million visitors every year. Yet the Korean War is often said to be our “Forgotten War,” a kind of also-ran in our historical consciousness. Certainly, compared to World War II or Vietnam, the saga of the Korean War has gotten short shrift in our films and literature, and aside from endless re-runs of M*A*S*H, it seems to have had scant purchase on our national imagination. Why is this?
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In part, it may be because the war ended in stalemate. “We died for a tie,” the veterans sometimes say, and on the face of it, there’s something unsatisfying about the ambiguity of the war’s outcome. We Americans understand victory, and we’ve come to understand defeat, but we can’t seem to get our heads around a tie. After three years of vicious fighting, the battle lines in Korea wound up more or less where they started, along the 38th Parallel—the circle of latitude the deliberating Allied powers had conveniently used after World War II to divide the former Japanese colony of Korea into a Communist north, and a Democratic south.
Although it started largely as a civil war, Korea quickly became an ideological world war. And it was a war that never officially ended: The hostilities concluded with a fragile armistice that left many critical issues muddy and unresolved, with the two Koreas separated by a demilitarized zone, studded with mine fields and snarled in concertina barbed wire. This border is still a stark and edgy place, where a smoldering conflagration from the 1950s could easily come roaring back to terrifying life with the drop of a match.
It was late afternoon of November 29, 1950, at a place that would be called Hellfire Valley, near the shores of the frozen Chosin Reservoir in the desolate high country of North Korea where nine hundred American and U.N. troops, in a long train of 150 vehicles, wound north through the snowy mountains. Winter had descended with a vengeance, with the temperature plummeting to 30 degrees below zero.
From the comfort of his Tokyo headquarters, General Douglas MacArthur, commander in chief of the UN forces, had ordered his troops to march as fast as they could toward North Korea’s border with Manchuria—which is to say, the border with Communist Red China.
What MacArthur’s intelligence officers didn’t know, or seemingly didn’t want to know, and what his men on the ground would soon discover, was that hundreds of thousands of Communist Chinese soldiers had crossed the same border, had streamed south under cover of night, and had taken up positions in the Taebaek Mountains to prepare for a surprise attack.
Mao Zedong, who up until then had been sitting on the sidelines, had now secretly entered the Korean War. And he had quite brilliantly prepared a trap for MacArthur’s troops. The stage was set for one of the greatest encirclements in modern military history.
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Step inside the story of one man’s acts of heroism in one of the most ferocious battles of the War. One story, among many, that should never be forgotten. Here is Jack Chapman’s story.
HAMPTON SIDES
AUTHOR & NARRATOR
New York Times bestselling Author of gripping non-fiction adventure stories.
“A captivating profile in courage . . . absolutely riveting.”
Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of All the Light We Cannot See
Testimonials
Unforgotten
"A spellbinding and moving story—one of the most harrowing accounts of war I have ever encountered.”
Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God.
“Superb . . . There is no finer example of American fighting men at their best when the times were at their worst.”
General James N. Mattis (Ret.), U.S. Marines, former Secretary of Defense
The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial sits on the southwestern edge of the Tidal Basin and consists of five outdoor rooms – one for each of his four unprecedented terms in office and a prologue.
Room One introduces visitors to FDR's first term as president beginning in 1933.
Room Two focuses on The Great Depression - and FDR's New Deal programs that helped lift Americans out of the worst financial crisis the country had ever experienced.
Room Three focuses on World War II and FDR’s integral role in defeating the Axis powers.
Room Four represents FDR’s death in April 1945 – just a few months into his fourth term of office and mere months before the end of WWII.
Finally, there is The Prologue Room which features a bronze sculpture of FDR sitting in a wheelchair - a representation of his diagnosis of polio and the subject of our BARDEUM experience Courage & Determination.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the longest serving President in U.S. history - winning four Presidential elections. He saw America through the Great Depression and through World War II, dying just months before it ended.
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Born into America’s upper class, FDR lived inside the highest circles of power and wealth. He was athletic and handsome and enjoyed all the privileges life offered. Until, at the age of 40, tragedy struck.
Step Inside the Story of FDR’s polio diagnosis and learn how this test of personal hardship shaped the man and the President he would become. Inspired by those around him, including his wife Eleanor and the ordinary Americans he met during his recovery, FDR found the Courage & Determination to fight for not just his own survival, but for the common good of all Americans.
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H.W BRANDS
AUTHOR
Two-Time Pulitzer Prize Finalist and New York Times bestselling author of over 30 books.
The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial was built in a wide V shape, with one "arm" directed toward the Lincoln Memorial and the other toward the Washington Monument. The shiny black granite allows visitors to see their own reflections as they view the etched names of the 58,318 men and women who died in combat or who were declared missing in action. This Memorial stands to honor the service of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War. It was a war like no other – in both battle tactics as well as the lingering political controversy. However, there is no doubt that these men and women fought to preserve the American way of life; to shield us from the red tide of communism before it crossed the oceans and crashed into our shores. Our BARDEUM experience relives the story of a single mission; one that offers just a glimpse into the honor, loyalty and sacrifice of those who served.
It’s dusk, and not even the scent of fuel and oil hanging in the humid heat, could repel the smell of blood and death as medics raced about, triaging the wounded as they were pulled from the belly of the work horse of Vietnam—a Huey helicopter that had just barely hobbled back to the base, riddled with bullet holes.
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Just a few yards from the helicopter’s skids, a row of U.S. government-issued body bags lay on the ground. Inside one of the zippered tombs is a stocky, five-foot-six-inch-tall 32 year old U.S. Army Green Beret staff sergeant from Cuero, Texas named Roy Benavidez. His body—a torn up canvas of bullet holes, shrapnel wounds, bayonet lacerations, punctures, burns, and bruises—painted a bloody portrait of his valor.
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What happened in the hours previous - and in the moments after - became the stuff of Legend.​
ERIC BLEHM
AUTHOR
New York Times bestselling author writing about those who serve.
BRADFORD HASTINGS
NARRATOR
Multi-Award Winning Professional Voice Actor and Audiobook narrator.
“A masterfully-told account of astonishing heroism. Captivates from the start. Hearing of the grit, determination, and bravery of these soldiers while walking along the names etched into the Vietnam Veterans Memorial offers a far greater understanding of their sacrifice. Prepare to be immersed!"
Adam Makos, New York Times bestselling author of Spearhead.
Testimonials
Behind Enemy Lines
"Absolutely engrossing! The best way to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial."
Anonymous User
Immediately after George Washington's death, Americans began debating the best way to memorialize him. Prominent Federalists proposed erecting a towering monument to him at the center of the nation’s new capital city, then under construction on the banks of the Potomac River near Mount Vernon. The election of Jefferson as president a year later, coupled with his party’s takeover of Congress, stalled the proposal. It took two generations to revive.
By the 1830s, Americans in both the North and South were looking for shared icons of nationhood that could help bridge the growing sectional divide over slavery. Washington – a southerner revered in the north – represented such a figure. Erecting a 600-foot high obelisk to his memory, which would then be the world’s tallest structure, could help unify the country.
Construction began in 1848 but halted six years later at 156 feet, a level still visible in the changed tint of the building stone. The Civil War further delayed construction until 1879, when (following Reconstruction) a monument to Washington could again serve to unite Northerners and Southerners. Completed in 1884 at 555 feet, 5 inches, the Washington Monument finally became the world’s tallest structure and a fitting tribute to the founding father who put the grand experiment of democracy before his own power and celebrity.
It was and remains one of the most remarkable events in the history of war, revolution, and politics. General George Washington retired. He did not need to – not by any means. He had just reoccupied New York from the departing British and, by doing so, completed the liberation of the United States from its colonial masters – the first successful modern war of independence. This feat made Washington a national hero and global celebrity.
Some inside the American army and others outside it wanted him to remain in command of the troops and perhaps take over the nation as some sort of king.
But on December 23, 1783, General George Washington retired. The world was shocked. Step inside the story of how one man changed the course of history.
EDWARD LARSON
AUTHOR
Pulitzer Prize winning and New York Times bestselling author.
World War II drew men and women from all walks of American life into roles they never could have imagined, experiences that would change them forever, and for many, sacrifices that would end their lives before they learned what the world might have held for them.
It has been this way from the founding of our country and through each unfortunate war. Reflecting on the Civil War, United States Senator John Thurston from Nebraska spoke about how ordinary men took up arms to defend the Union: “He was not born or bred to soldier life. His country’s summons called him from the plow, the forge, the bench, the loom, the mine, the store, the office, the college, the sanctuary. He did not fight for greed of gold, to find adventure, or to win renown. He loved the peace of quiet ways, and yet broke the clasp of clinging arms, turned from the witching glances of tender eyes, left good-by kisses upon tiny lips to look death in the face on desperate fields.”
And so it was repeated less than a century later when World War II tore the world asunder. The men and women of the United States responded dutifully. They should be remembered for their sacrifice.
World War II stretched across the globe – consuming all of Europe, Africa and the far reaches of the Pacific. When the United States was forced into the war following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans stepped up to do their part. Each would have a story to tell when they came home, if they came home, an experience unique and instrumental in defining their lives from that point forward.
School teachers became bomber pilots, farmers became paratroopers, the bank manager found himself in the sands of northern Africa facing Rommel’s Panzer division, the shop owner from Iowa became the lieutenant charging up a mountain on a Pacific island he didn’t know existed a week earlier.
There are countless stories that exemplify those to whom this WWII monument memorializes. Join us for just one - that of Benjamin Lewis Salomon, a dentist, who at 29 years old found himself in one of the most brutal battles of the Pacific, 8 days after D-Day, on the tiny island of Saipan.
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GREGORY A.
FREEMAN
AUTHOR
Award Winning Journalist and author of compelling narrative nonfiction.
DAN JOHN
MILLER
NARRATOR
An Audie award-winning voice-actor, Dan has been named a “Best Voice” by Audiofile magazine 5 years running. He has also had roles in Walk the Line and Leatherheads.
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