Find a piano to play in every city you visit

Scout the city before you leave

The best time to look for pianos is the evening before you travel, not when you are standing in an unfamiliar square with a dying phone. Search the city by name and work through what comes up:

1. Look at the whole map first. Pianos tend to cluster around the main station, the old town and big shopping streets. See which clusters overlap with where you are staying or sightseeing.
2. Filter for condition. On a short trip you don’t want to spend an hour reaching a piano with dead keys. Start with Great and widen to Fair if the city is thin.
3. Check access and setting. Business hours means the building has to be open. Outdoor pianos are at the mercy of the weather, so for a rainy city, filter for Indoor or Covered.
4. Save a shortlist. Bookmark the three or four that fit your plans. When you have a spare half hour, open Saved instead of searching again.

PianoSpot is not an offline map, so plan to have data or Wi-Fi when you look pianos up and ask for directions.

Where travelers find pianos on the ground

Train stations are the most reliable bet in many European cities, since a station piano tends to stay put and the building is open long hours. Airports have a few, though which side of security they sit on matters (our layover guide covers that). Summer brings temporary street pianos: art projects such as Luke Jerram’s Play Me, I’m Yours place painted pianos around a city for a few weeks, then take them away. If you find a piano on an old blog post or a festival page, check its dates before you plan around it.

Hotel lobbies and cafés sometimes have a piano guests may play. Those aren’t public in the same way, so ask at the desk or the counter first, and buy a coffee.

The Piano Passport

Every time you play a piano, tap “I played this piano” to check in. The first check-in at each piano mints a numbered stamp with the city, the venue and the month and year, and it goes onto the stamp wall in your Piano Passport. The Passport keeps a running count of pianos, cities and countries, which turns a habit of sitting down at station pianos into something closer to a travel journal.

Coming back to a favourite piano doesn’t give you a second stamp, but every check-in still earns Notes, which count toward your level. If you want the Passport to follow you to a new phone, sign in; browsing works without an account.

Playing well in someone else’s city

A station piano in a city you are visiting is part of somebody’s daily commute. A few habits keep it pleasant for everyone:

• Keep it short when people are waiting. Two or three pieces, then offer the bench.
• Read the sign. Some pianos have posted hours or volume requests, often in the local language. A translation app takes ten seconds.
• Watch your bag. Busy stations are where a backpack left by the bench disappears. Keep it between your feet.
• Leave it as you found it. Close the lid or put the cover back if there was one.

For more on time limits and volume, see our public piano etiquette guide.

Help the next traveler

After you play, vote the piano up or down and leave a short review. “Two sticky keys in the bass, otherwise lovely” is exactly what the next visitor wants to know. If you find a piano that isn’t on the map yet, add it: drop a pin, give it a name and add a photo. It takes about a minute, and duplicates are caught before they are added. Mapped pianos in places tourists pass through are the ones most likely to get played, and to get reported when they go missing.