Virtual Travel
July 11, 2012 8:04 AM   Subscribe

 
Kinda cool. I love dropping the little Google man into random spots in Ireland, England and Tokyo.
posted by zzazazz at 8:16 AM on July 11, 2012


Hey! It's a site devoted to what I do when I'm bored at work, except it saves me from the work dropping the Google guy into the middle of Polynesia or something.
posted by Turkey Glue at 8:27 AM on July 11, 2012 [3 favorites]


I love Google Streetview. I can't wait until they cover more area, especially India and more of Latin America. Here's a map of the current coverage.

posted by desjardins at 9:09 AM on July 11, 2012


Here's a much larger map of streetview coverage and where their cars are currently.
posted by desjardins at 9:12 AM on July 11, 2012 [3 favorites]


I'm... actually doing this right now.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 9:14 AM on July 11, 2012


And to add to what I just said, I discovered you can actually go inside some restaurants. I have no idea how that works...
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 9:20 AM on July 11, 2012


I've done this a bit on my site (Tokyo fashion, Paris, Macau). I post daily street view images here. I'd also recommend Google Sightseeing (we're currently posting about deserts).
posted by mattbucher at 9:55 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]


I tend to use it to illustrate, as it were, news articles I read. Just moments ago I was following up on the train derailment in Illinois that tragically happened on a viaduct just as a couple was driving beneath it, burying them in 27 tender cars' worth of coal.
Mostly I was trying to figure out if I'd ever driven that way while I was living in the area. I don't think I managed to.
posted by dhartung at 10:43 AM on July 11, 2012


Google street view sometimes feels like travel spoilers. I like it best when I'm trying to find places I've already been.
posted by postcommunism at 11:22 AM on July 11, 2012 [1 favorite]


I particularly enjoy the desolate stretches of desert highway, or small towns on the tip of an odd corner of Norway. I think that when I'm overwhelmed with work, responsibility, or I'm just sick of my staid sliver of the globe, I can access a random place I'd otherwise never see. Granted, most of the time it's a low-resolution highway with typical deciduous foliage, but still, I get a glimpse at the mystery of somewhere else!

Sometimes when I drive through small towns (especially in Northern Michigan) I wonder "Who the hell lives here? How do you end up in such a place?" Dragging the Google guy through a downtown reminds me that each hamlet is a place to someone, and that (in the U.S. at least) those places aren't all that different in appearance. It's like risk-free travel for me.

Or maybe I'm just bored, enjoy escapism, and need to get back to real work.
posted by Turkey Glue at 11:45 AM on July 11, 2012


I discovered you can actually go inside some restaurants.

Ooooh, when Google Street View was launched the first thing I said was, "Someday soon you'll be able to see who's already inside the bar you want to go to, instead of risking running into your ex." Someone was listening... we're getting closer and closer to that day. Yikes.
posted by heyho at 1:10 PM on July 11, 2012


I love this so much. Totally in my feed reader and planning my next vacation.
posted by iamkimiam at 2:08 PM on July 11, 2012


I enjoyed using Google street view during my watchthru of The Wire to confirm that Baltimore is, in fact, as squalorous as the show depicted. There are some hard streets in that city, by god.
posted by malapropist at 4:39 PM on July 11, 2012


Reminds me of Address is Approximate: A stop-motion road trip, in miniature.
posted by modernserf at 6:13 PM on July 11, 2012


I look eagerly forward to more use of google street view as a medium of artistic expression, because this one is amazing.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:23 PM on July 11, 2012


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