Do you play with Google Earth enough? I’m not sure it’s possible to play with Google Earth enough. I’d forgotten to install it until fairly recently, so I’m still excited about it…Then again I doubt that I’ll get less excited about it as time goes on.
Check out the Amalfi coast some time. Or Capri. Or Norway and those notorious fjords. Or Vancouver. Or Stockholm. Or Paris. Or Edinburgh. Or Cornwall.
At the moment I’m working on the Yorkshire Dales. I took a little break there about an hour ago. I went to Gunnerside, in Swaledale; found a very local but blue-lined road partway up a moor to the west of Gunnerside, and just traveled along it pausing to do a 360 every few yards. Staggering!
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23 responses to “Desk chair tourism”
Check out Balkh, Afganistan. Wikipedia says it is one of the oldest cities in the world. I don’t know about that but is very strange! For some reason, the shots of the area are very poor.
I did, when it first came out. I showed someone every house I lived in… And some of the crazy journeys I took…
The novelty of looking at all the places I lived wore off, though. And I’d never considered ‘tourism by Google Earth…”
I recommend an African safari. See if you can spot any giraffes or elephants. Once you start, you begin to realise just how vast and undeveloped Africa is.
This will either be old news, or blow your socks off, Ophelia:
http://www.googleartproject.com/
Artist James Gurney recommends using MapCrunch for artists in need of a background in their paintings: it uses images from Google Streetview, and simplifies creating a location. Amazing stuff. Great idea to use it to tour an area.
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2010/11/map-crunch.html
And you don’t have all those worries about driving on the wrong side of the road.
There should be an atheist/secularist tour of Google Earth, if there isn’t already.
Dan
Ooh giraffes and elephants, that’s an idea.
I googled mapped my house and it showed my car in front that I sold 5 years ago. Wonder how often they update neighborhoods.
But I never thought of it as a tourist mechanism. I’ll have to try it.
Oh good, I was thinking I was probably being a clueless dork pointing out the joys of Google Earth tourism when everyone else had already toured every inch of the globe four times over, but no, some people haven’t even thought of it. Terrific. You’re in for a treat!
How do I fit googleearth in between all the books, the gym, the blogs, and all the rest? Just thinking about all the books that are stacking up is beginning to give me a Kopfschmerzen! All the same, a walking tour of the Dales would be lovely — but especially walking through the Lake District. I’ll have to try, when my headache is gone!
Ah but it’s a refreshing little break from reading and writing, Eric. And I at least never take long. I just get a nice bite of something and then stop. Since it’s always there and there’s no plane waiting, there’s no need to do a lot at once, and it has time to sink in.
@Eric
What about evenings in the pub?
Has anyone spotted Slartibartfasts’s signature yet?
One of my favourite towns is Timbuktu. Definitely worth a visit or two.
I go ogle there quite often.
He. A nice diversion. I haven’t looked at it in a while but was quite addicted to it at the beginning. (But then I like maps, too.) Check out the American Southwest (or the Sahara) for some nice desert topography. Or go along the South African coast East from Cape Town, and look for whales. Or off to Big Island in Hawaii.
[@OB: Should I introduce myself, since I read your blog more regularly now, and also seem to comment, if erratically? I’m never quite sure how formal a forum any blog is.]
Ben –
:- )
No need. Feel free if you want to, but certainly no need. There are no rules or expectations on the subject. I think some people feel like pointing out that they’ve been reading for awhile when they first comment. that’s all.
I guess there’s a certain clubby feel on any blog where there are “regulars” – but there’s also always plenty of churning, so I hope it feels like a club with an open door.
And thanks for the suggestions! They all sound good.
I just crossed the Pennines! From Keld to just south of Kirkby Stephen, on the B6270.
I’ve always wanted to cross the Pennines.
(At one point you could actually see the shadow of the camera. That was surprising and amusing.)
I’ve just returned from visiting my 90 year old parents in New Zealand. Spent some of the time showing them Google Street View and taking them to the places of their youth in Scotland – interesting for me as it got them talking about the places and the people of 70-80 years ago.
Thanks, OB. I’ll introduce myself piece by piece then, if and when it fits. Sometimes I suffer from excessive formality but it usually wears away.
The walk on the Pennines sounds a bit exhausting. I think I’ll pass, right now.
Google uses 2d satellite images combined with ground profile information to synthesize 3d landscape views. Normally this works pretty well, but it goes very very wrong when bridges are involved….
http://clementvalla.com/index.php?/work/bridges/
Oh I didn’t walk it, Ben – it was more like a helicopter ride with pauses to look around. :- )
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