An electronic travel aid (ETA) for visually impaired and blind people (subject) with minimum physical interface adapted to perform real-time navigation without digital camera and complex hardware. Importantly, the electronic travel aid relates to real-time situations with speech messages stored in flash memory for aiding the visually impaired or blind people. The electronic travel aid is provided involving wireless or wired technology and is directed to serve as a low-cost, robust, reliable, and user- friendly solution for blind or visually impaired navigation.