Thurmont, MD Self-Guided GPS Walking Tour
Downtown Thurmont wanted a modern, accessible way to share its history with visitors and residents. The town needed a tool that would encourage people to walk through Main Street, discover historic buildings, and learn about the community’s heritage at their own pace. A mobile‑friendly, GPS‑guided walking tour offered the perfect solution. It provides an engaging experience for visitors, supports local tourism, and preserves community stories in a format that can grow over time.
HOW IT WORKS
Visitors open the tour on their phone and follow a GPS map through downtown. As they walk, each stop reveals short videos, historical context, archival photos, and contemporary images. The tour guides users from point to point, making it easy to explore the area without needing a printed brochure or guided group. The experience is simple, intuitive, and designed for both casual visitors and history enthusiasts.
There's an associated virtual tour version of this project!
Additionally, we created an interactive virtual tour for people interested or thinking about visiting the client’s location! Click to view the virtual tour
COLLABORATION
The Thurmont team supplied historical knowledge, archival photos, and access to key buildings. They also provided local experts to appear in the videos. We handled everything else, including route planning, filming, photography, editing, interface design, GPS mapping, and final deployment. The client only needed to be on‑site for a small portion of the media capture, making the project smooth and manageable for their staff.
PROCESS
We began by designing the walking route and planning the content for each stop. Over several visits, we captured all video, and photo imagery needed for the tour. After editing and assembling the media, we built the GPS‑guided tour using the STQRY Guide platform and tested it on multiple devices. Once approved, the tour was published and prepared for public use, complete with hosting and support materials for the client.
CONTENT
11 Tour-guide hosted videos
We filmed and edited a dedicated video for each historic building, featuring a local history expert along with supporting footage and archival photos. These videos were also delivered directly to the client for use in other applications.
Contemporary Photography of town and historic points of interest
A set of high quality modern photography of the town and the locations of interest was captured via drone and on foot, then edited and featured in the virtual tour. These photos were also delivered seperately to the client for use elsewhere.
History Articles and historic photos
The client contributed the historical expertise and archival documents, and together we developed concise article texts supported by historic photos.
Take a look at this video demo of the tour in action
View this playlist containing video content that is included in the tour.