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Who has time (or money) for a vacation anymore? There’s just not enough free time in the month for your typical hardcore geek to unstick him or herself from that butt indentation in the office chair, throw some Threadless t-shirts into a bag, and travel to parts unknown. No, there’s email to check. Digital dungeons to stomp! Desktop files to organize!
Before you emit a frustrated sigh and close this article from the realization that, yes, our lives are truly just like that, fret not. For I have visited many a location across this great wide Internet, and I come back from my cyber-vacation with riches to behold. You don’t need to take a real-life vacation, because everything you’ve ever needed for a digital vacation is but a few keystrokes away.
Don’t believe me? Think this is going to be just some lame exercise in travel-themed Web apps? Guess again. Grab your virtual Ray-Bans and slap on some cyber-sunscreen: We’re going to travel the world together… and Carmen Sandiego is decidedly not invited along. Think we missed a gem? Alert us to the error of our ways in the comments!
Google Maps is quite extensive in the view-a-home-away-from-home features it builds into its service (hint: Hover your mouse over the big “Map” or “Satelite” button in the upper-right corner, then select webcams, videos, or photos for live feeds, YouTube clips, and pictures). But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Mapcrunch is, hands down, my favorite tool for taking a scenic trip through another land. Pick some countries and hit the big “Go” button to randomize yourself to a Street View shot somewhere within the areas you’ve selected. But if you actually want get a little more realistic than mere pictures, Geoquake’s driving simulator will put you behind the wheel of a car set overtop Google Maps itself–no extra points for getting all Grand Theft Auto about it.
For a more chauffeured tour, the Google Earth Plug-in Driving Simulator allows you to select any two points you want to travel between– with Google providing the car. Just sit back and relax as Google drives the route for you! (A precursor to Google actually driving a route for you.)
Even digital cars can be pretty slow, though. And that’s exactly why Google has built a flight simulator into its downloadable Google Earth program. It’s not quite as fancy as that Microsoft program of a similar name, but it gets the job done if you just want to buzz by your favorite landmarks in a digital environment.
For a more musically intensive and, dare I say it, artistic trip through some of your favorite places, there’s always The Arcade Fire’s HTML5-based music video for “We Used to Wait.” What it lacks in actionable data points and directions, it makes up for in American Beauty-like… er… beauty. Pick your hometown for the address you input into the app; you won’t be disappointed.
Of course, you can always eschew Earthly minutia entirely. For a more holistic view of that great, big marble in the sky, check out Desktop Earth. This simple wallpaper gives you an accurate depiction of how Earth looks at precisely the moment you’re viewing it.
Let’s all say it together: Flickr. There. It’s out of our systems. We all know Flickr exists, and we all know that you can type in any given geographical place and pull up a smorgasboard of shots tagged for the location within Flickr’s main search. Ta-da.
Panoramio, however, is a little different. I prefer it because it overlays images across a standard map of the world–very similar to Google Maps’ similar, built-in functionality. Not only can you see the most popular (and most recent) photographs for any given space, but you can also see photos that have yet to be submitted to Google Earth/Google Maps. Or, for whatever reason, photos that were rejected for publication into either app. It’s the real deal, yo.
OK, it didn’t take that long for us to jump back into the Flickr boat once again. Earth Album is just like every other “puts photos on a map” web app out on the Web, only it does so with pictures that have been uploaded to Flickr. Easy enough, right? Well, the catch with Earth Album is that this Web app only samples the cream of the crop. You’re only going to see the top Flickr images over an unspecified time frame slapped on the map. The site’s less compelling to visit on a daily basis but, when you do go, you’ll know that you’re getting some of the best images that the photography world has to offer.
Oh, Twitter. I confess, the only semi-interesting and somewhat novel Web app I could find related to Twitter and travel was Twittermap. It’s not an outright travel-related mashup of Twitter and a big ol’ map, but it’s definitely a useful tool for finding out the popularity of a certain keyword or phrase throughout the globe. For example, suppose I want to know which users in which countries have most frequently used the word “cat” in their recent Tweets. Type in the word, and little Google Maps-style indicators will pop up on the map for every user that’s recently used the word in a 140-character (or less) message.
Now we’re getting to the good stuff. As well as the bad stuff. I say that as I do, for a webcam slapped right in front of a national landmark or scenic area is practically as good as visiting, right? Why pay $2,000 to go hit up the Eiffel Tower when you can just pull up the official EiffelCam? Still there! Still a tower!
Unfortunately, trying to find legitimate sites that feature webcams instead of SEO spam is like trying to find Atlantis. EarthCam is one such site that has yet to be too burdened by the annoyances of BS text and links. As I mentioned earlier, Google Maps also comes with a webcam layer that you can activate overtop its standard map display–a useful tool for trying to pinpoint webcams around a particular location, but not one that always delivers the best quality webcam feed for a given spot.
For the aspiring Snow Bro, the website Snoweye catalogs webcams specifically placed on, or near, a ton of different ski resorts across 46 different countries. That’s over 5,000 webcam feeds in all: Try not to let the tear falling from your eye turn into a hunk of ice as you pensively dream of shredding from the comfort of your nine-to-five day job.
And if that’s not cold enough for you, there’s always the International Space Station!
Comments are closed on this article
icrazy
June 12, 2011 at 8:36am
When I hit the "Print" button, there is a list of links at the bottom of the page, but in the article, references to those links ([1], [2], ...) are gone! So there is no good way to tell which link comes from where. Please fix this!
HoopSpread
June 08, 2011 at 10:17am
Yeah,these apps are really fascinating. I've checked into Google Earth,...can't say '"I've been evveeerrry where maaan". Still it is a great way to look at things that does not have entry,import/travel restrictions.
Some of the areas would not be presently matched views . That is they may be several years back. But checking into the local area photos/videos is plenty entertaining,and very informative.
Comparative to some of the emotional news accounts of several areas,where you might be lead to believe (such as china) people are walking in potatoe sacks etc. You can see life for how it is . An interesting aspect of viewing a mysterious place.
