Detour is an Android app which uses the Google Maps API to track the user and display them on a map with interesting cultural/historical buildings marked on it. If the user gets close to one of these buildings, they will be alerted, and will be given information about that building. The alert system based on geographical proximity to an interesting site was built using geofences.

The app is supposed to be aimed at tourists, foreign students, and also local students who perhaps have moved away from home to attend university. The focus is to provide choices to the user; if they want to go and see all the major tourist attractions, that would be possible with the app. However, a filtering system allows other, more hidden areas to be found: the idea is that these locations are the real London, the one that that those who only visit the big sights are missing out on.

At the moment, only a few test locations have been built into the app, but it should be quite easy to expand this set of buildings to suit every purpose the app needs to fulfil when complete. The user interface is also very bare at the moment, and we have not yet implemented a proper database system for the storing of interesting locations.