GPS is amazing on highways and useless in old towns. Narrow alleys, tall buildings, covered bazaars and basement streets all break the satellite signal. The blue dot drifts, the arrow spins, and you walk in circles. Photo-based navigation solves this differently: instead of locating you on a map, it shows you what to look for.
Satellite signals bounce off stone walls and metal roofs, so your position jumps around by 10-50 meters. In a 2-meter-wide alley, that's three wrong turns. Compasses get confused near metal and magnets. Paper maps don't show the 14th-century shortcuts. Old towns simply are not GPS territory.
A photo route is a series of steps. Each step is a real photo of the corner, doorway or landmark you will reach, plus a short direction. You walk until the scene matches the photo, then follow the instruction for the next one. You are comparing what you see with what the route creator saw - no coordinates required.
Covered souks (Fez, Istanbul), medieval medinas, Venice's calli, hutong alleys, underground passages, night walks in unlit lanes. Anywhere the blue dot lies, a photograph cannot. Photos also work when your phone is in airplane mode, abroad without a SIM, or out of battery-saving data.
imhere lets anyone create a photo route: walk the path, photograph each turn, add a short direction, and share it with a code. Locals, hotel staff and fellow travelers can publish the routes that tourists actually need - from the airport taxi stand to the hidden teahouse.