Walk through Roosevelt Island, right outside of Rosslyn, and you'll be greeted with majestic trees and a huge statue of President Theodore Roosevelt.
But one startup wants you to imagine walking through the park with the voice of well-known Teddy Roosevelt impersonator Joe Weigand in your headphones telling you the personal stories of the late President and his policies.
That image is now a reality with the launch of San Francisco-based app Detour in Washington, D.C.
"We really try to think about how to build a catalog of tours in each city that are diverse and offer different kinds of stories and experiences to meet all kinds of travelers' and locals' needs," said Heather Schuster, Detour's chief content officer.
Detour, which was founded in 2014 by Groupon founder Andrew Mason, debuted officially in D.C. on May 23, bringing it into the fold of the startup's 12 American cities and 6 international locations. For about $5 per tour, tourists and residents can download guided walking tours of neighborhoods in different cities around the world straight onto your phone. This isn't just your typical "Big Bus Tours" experience though—each tour is told through the perspective of a local of the city who has a personal connection to the neighborhood you're exploring. And unlike typical guided in-person tours, you get to do it on your own terms; no need to be at a certain place by a certain time.
In D.C., the tours vary from the one of Roosevelt Island to one that harps on the evolution of go-go music around the U Street Corridor and another that relives the day President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Narrators include local musicians, journalists and performers.
"D.C. is a big tourist destination and people are out walking lots of neighborhoods and the sites," Schuster said. "There are a few ways that we figure out the stories that we want to tell, but the most important thing is that we're telling a narrator's story that is connected to the neighborhood and we're telling it in a way where you can't find this story anywhere else."
Detour works with local producers in each location to bring together storytellers and scripts that follow you as you experience the neighborhood. GPS technology allows Detour to also pinpoint where you are in the tour and give you directions like "Look to your left, that's where this happened" or implement augmented reality tech to have you see what that part of the city used to look like way back when. "It’s like producing content for television and other mediums," Schuster said. "We have to find a great story and script it well and craft a story that is compelling."
In all, Schuster said they aim to have four-to-eight tours in each market, and right now, they have four in D.C.
"We tell you a historical and cultural story, but we do it through a narrator's point of view," Schuster said. "We do it in a much more layered and interesting experience of a neighborhood than you would in any other tour product where it's just the greatest hits of D.C."
Here's a preview of Detour's tour of Roosevelt Island—
Image used via CC BY 2.0 — credit Steve Snodgrass
