{"id":3617,"date":"2008-03-02T16:36:48","date_gmt":"2008-03-02T15:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newth.net\/eirik\/2008\/03\/02\/google-maps-as-a-travellers-aid\/"},"modified":"2008-03-02T16:36:48","modified_gmt":"2008-03-02T15:36:48","slug":"google-maps-as-a-travellers-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newth.net\/eirik\/2008\/03\/02\/google-maps-as-a-travellers-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Maps as a traveller&#039;s aid"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" marginheight=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/?ie=UTF8&amp;ll=9.968037,76.245375&amp;spn=0.003947,0.004721&amp;t=h&amp;z=18&amp;output=embed&amp;s=AARTsJqzARj-Z8VnW5pkPMLMmZbqrJcYpw\"><\/iframe><br \/><small><a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/?ie=UTF8&amp;ll=9.968037,76.245375&amp;spn=0.003947,0.004721&amp;t=h&amp;z=18&amp;source=embed\" style=\"color:#0000FF;text-align:left\">View Larger Map<\/a><\/small><\/div>\n<p>Before we travelled to Kerala recently, we naturally googled and read up on our destinations, and found useful tips on sites such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lonelyplanet.com\/thorntree\/index.jspa\">Lonely Planet&#8217;s Thorn Tree<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/wikitravel.org\/en\/Main_Page\">Wikitravel<\/a>. What you usually don&#8217;t get in written material, though, is a visual sense of a place. <a href=\"http:\/\/flickr.com\">Flickr<\/a> is an immensely rich source of pictures of exotic locations, but most pictures (including my own, I have to admit) are still not <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/map\/\">geotagged<\/a>. Which is where <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\">Google Maps<\/a> enters the picture.<br \/>\nAlthough the image quality varies a lot, there&#8217;s no reason not to check out your destination. Shown above is a satellite image of the immediate area sourrounding our hotel in Fort Cochin, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cochinballard.com\/\">Ballard Bungalow<\/a> (a lovely place and highly recommended, btw). By clicking and dragging, you can take a virtual walk around the neigbourhood and check out the distance to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hindu.com\/2006\/03\/01\/stories\/2006030118720300.htm\">famous chinese nets<\/a>, for instance (in this case, click and drag the picture a couple of frames to the right to see them). Or see how far away the nearest bus station or ferry jetty is.<br \/>\nThe first time I did this was last year, before we travelled to Malta and I wanted to check out the sights, beaches and transportation options of <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/?ie=UTF8&#038;t=h&#038;ll=35.952172,14.424545&#038;spn=0.006236,0.009441&#038;z=17\">Bugibba<\/a>. Google Maps can also give you a trip down memory lane. This is <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/?ie=UTF8&#038;ll=-6.141995,39.514732&#038;spn=0.00383,0.004721&#038;t=h&#038;z=18\">the hotel in Zanzibar<\/a> where we spent part our honeymoon, for instance. Yes, it <em>is<\/em> pretty isolated, isn&#8217;t it? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>View Larger Map Before we travelled to Kerala recently, we naturally googled and read up on our destinations, and found useful tips on sites such as Lonely Planet&#8217;s Thorn Tree and Wikitravel. What you usually don&#8217;t get in written material,&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newth.net\/eirik\/2008\/03\/02\/google-maps-as-a-travellers-aid\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-reiser"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newth.net\/eirik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newth.net\/eirik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newth.net\/eirik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newth.net\/eirik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newth.net\/eirik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newth.net\/eirik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newth.net\/eirik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newth.net\/eirik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newth.net\/eirik\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}