Driving through Time features roughly 2700 photographs and 76 interactive maps of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The website allows students, researchers, and digital tourists to uncover hidden stories, hear forgotten voices, and understand the often wrenching choices that the construction and preservation of a scenic parkway in a populated region have necessarily entailed.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Jan 22, 2012 -
4 comments
Wanderfly is
travel inspiration site. Enter your starting point, when you want to travel, how much you want to spend, and what you want to do, and Wanderfly spits out some suggestions from sites around the world, including things to do and places to stay.
posted by filthy light thief
on Jan 3, 2012 -
47 comments
Vacations, diversions and roadtrips:
On The Way suggests attractions and reststops for any route.
The Weekend Map shows events and activities for 27 American cities for the coming weekend.
Nerdy Day Trips (previously) suggests trips for geeks of all kinds, while
Trazzler suggests daytrips for where you live. Don't have a car?
Mapnificent (previously) shows you where you can get to from any point in a given time using public transit.
EveryTrail suggests walks, rambles, strolls and hikes. Google's new
HotelFinder service locates places to stay in a sketched area on a map, with a range of options.
via
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul
on Dec 14, 2011 -
7 comments
Address is Approximate. "A lonely desk toy longs for escape from the dark confines of the office, so he takes a cross country road trip to the Pacific Coast in the only way he can – using a toy car and Google Maps Street View."
posted by BoringPostcards
on Nov 23, 2011 -
12 comments
Around the World in 80 Days is a BBC television travel series first broadcast in 1989. It was presented by comedian and actor Michael Palin.The show was inspired by Jules Verne's classic novel Around the World in Eighty Days, in which a character named Phileas Fogg accepts a wager to circumnavigate the globe in eighty days or less. Palin was given the same deadline... Here's
Episode 1 - The Challenge.
[more inside]
posted by twoleftfeet
on Nov 21, 2011 -
35 comments
The Burton Holmes Archive has information about Burton Holmes, the travel writer who became the first person to make filmic travelogues. More importantly, they also have a lot of
film clips by Holmes and his associate,
André de la Varre, who was also a great travelogue maker himself. Watching these clips is not quite time travel, but it is as close as we can get. Take a look at
Reykjavík, Iceland, in 1926,
Lake Michigan in 20s,
Cairo in 1932 and
the 1955 Rio de Janeiro carnival. The later films have sound and narration, but I prefer the silent ones.
[Burton Holmes previously, André de la Varre previously, and the Travel Film Archive, which runs Burton Holmes site, previously]
posted by Kattullus
on Oct 26, 2011 -
5 comments
In 1971, Hunter Thompson first published Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
in Rolling Stone. Forty years later, The Daily’s Zach Baron revisits the piece and the town in which it was born, chasing Thompson's ghost through crazy desert car races, a dying local economy and a massive and menacing hacker convention known as DEFCON. (previously)
posted by Trurl
on Oct 6, 2011 -
26 comments
The Smallest Hotel in the World [autoplay of 'La Traviata']. So here's the story: it's 1728 and you live in Amberg, a little Bavarian town somewhere north of Munich. You and your lady friend really, really want to get married, but there is a little snag; the council laws permit only
homeowners to marry, and you're still stuck renting a place. But all is not lost! You pick up a little strip of empty land between two other buildings - just 2.5 meters wide. You run up a quick wall on the front, another on the back, slap a roof on top, and presto - you're a homeowner. The council falls for it, and allows you to get married.
[more inside]
posted by woodblock100
on Sep 24, 2011 -
28 comments
Evan Osnos joins a tour group from China as they traverse Europe. In the front row of the bus, Li stood facing the group with a microphone in hand, a posture he would retain for most of our waking hours in the days ahead. In the life of a Chinese tourist, guides play an especially prominent role—translator, raconteur, and field marshal—and Li projected a calm, seasoned air. He often referred to himself in the third person—Guide Li—and he prided himself on efficiency. “Everyone, our watches should be synchronized,” he said. “It is now 7:16 P.M.” He implored us to be five minutes early for every departure. “We flew all the way here,” he said. “Let’s make the most of it.” [more inside]
posted by WalterMitty
on Jul 28, 2011 -
71 comments
These days, the term
Movable Type is more likely to make people think of a blogging platform than anything involving paper, but it used to refer to the letters, words, and graphics typically cast in an alloy of lead, tin and antimony or carved from wood, that could be rearranged by a letterpress printer for each individual job. In an environment where toner serves most of our current printing needs, the endangered art of letterpress printing now has a roving champion. Her name is Kyle Durrie, and she is the proprietor of
Power and Light Press in Portland, Oregon. Back in March
she bought herself a 1982 Chevy step van, gutted it, and then installed a work area and a couple of printing presses in the back. She stocked it with a variety of type and ornaments and she is now driving it all over the U.S. teaching folks about the joys of printing with pressure. Maybe if you ask nicely,
she'll stop by your neighborhood and show you how to print, just like
Bi Sheng first did over a thousand years ago.
posted by Toekneesan
on Jul 26, 2011 -
12 comments
On one level
America reCycled is simply the journal of two brothers riding recycled bicycles across the United States and meeting people. Lots of them. On another level it is a Homeric tale of an American adventure. It has been a long time since I have seen web content of this quality. The writing is superb, the videos so compelling you can't look away and the perspective gained is invaluable. I am positive this has been posted here before, but it certainly deserves a bump.
posted by dbooker
on May 20, 2011 -
10 comments
Frederik and Gerrit Braun, energetic twin brothers with no shortage of dreams, have just finished construction of the world’s largest model airport. With 40,000 lights, 15,000 figurines, 500 cars, 10,000 trees, 50 trains, 1000 wagons, 100 signals, 200 switches, 300 buildings and 40 planes, Knuffingen Airport is both a wonder to behold as well as a technological tour de force. The best part of Knuffingen is that it’s alive. Forty planes and 90 vehicles move about autonomously.
posted by Trurl
on May 12, 2011 -
26 comments
Wanderlust:
GOOD Magazine, in collaboration with Graham Roberts, maps the most famous journeys in history - some fiction, some non-fiction. Wanderlust includes trips like Around the World in 80 Days and Journey to the Center of the Earth to the voyages of Marco Polo and Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight. However, it's not just a map with journey lines on it; Wanderlust is a history lesson. Select a trip for a summary and explore highlights of the journey.
posted by nickyskye
on Apr 15, 2011 -
3 comments
Imagine this: you live in a fairly remote place and need emergency eye surgery to save your sight that very same day. you get onto a plane but mid-trip
your flight gets cancelled because of a technical problem. flying with most airlines we know would mean you'd miss your surgery and be in a pretty tough spot.
but not when you're flying SAS. instead of leaving you stranded with a voucher, the airline found a replacement aircraft at another airport,
flew it over to the passenger and got her to her surgery on time (
original article). there is a lot going wrong in the airline industry these days but in my book that's pretty awesome.
posted by krautland
on Apr 12, 2011 -
76 comments
Mapping Petersburg "..explores the everyday life and the material, political, and literary culture of St. Petersburg
[..] at the beginning of the twentieth century. It maps eleven itineraries through the city with the purpose of creating a palpable sense of life in Russia's late imperial capital on the eve of the 1917 revolution and during the subsequent decade." [
About] [
via]
[more inside]
posted by peacay
on Apr 6, 2011 -
8 comments
As your airline takes you from Point A to Point B, do you ever wonder about all the points in between? Enter
MondoWindow (in beta today), which mashes up satellite photos, air traffic data, wikipedia, and flickr to show where your plane is, and what's nearby on the earth below, provided your flight has wifi.
[more inside]
posted by underthehat
on Mar 10, 2011 -
17 comments
The American Festivals Project takes you along on two guys'
National Geographic-funded 2008 tour of the "small, hidden, and bizarre"
festivals celebrated all over the United States. Through photos,
video, and a
blog, discover
Rattlesnake Roundup,
Okie noodling, an American
Fasnacht, the
Idiotarod, and
plenty more.
[more inside]
posted by Miko
on Feb 17, 2011 -
23 comments
Starship Schematics Database:
dedicated to the sole purpose of archiving every single starship design ever conceived in the Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, and Space Battleship Yamato (A.K.A. Star Blazers in the USA) Universes, both official and unofficial, interesting and mediocre.
posted by Joe Beese
on Feb 12, 2011 -
35 comments
