This paper discusses ways of experiencing digital technology and digital interactions in ‘smart learning journey’ activities. Smart learning journeys can be considered as ad-hoc smart learning environments outside in the real world, offering a wide range of opportunity for empowering local populace engagement in issues relevant to a neighbourhood area. Activities may often be associated with urban citizen communities, enhancing quality of life and lifelong learning in urban digitally connected ‘hyperlocal’ spaces. Activities discussed in this paper used freely available smartphone apps and consisted of a series of digitally augmented real-world local features that together formed a journey of points of interest related by topic