Too busy this summer for a vacation? No room in your budget for a trip? Or do you just long to see the forbidden parts of the world, where even the most seasoned travellers rarely tread?
There’s an app for that. Sort of.
Google Street View can take you on a virtual tour of some of the most breathtaking and remote locations on the planet -- without you ever needing to leave your computer chair.
Sure, it’s a far cry from the real travel experience, but in some cases, Street View can become a window to destinations you would never see otherwise.
Here are some of the most striking and far-flung destinations you can visit through virtual tours with Google Street View.
1. Galapagos Islands
One of the crown jewels of Google Street View is its incredible Galapagos Islands tour. The tiny volcanic islands off the coast of South America play host to a staggering array of animal life, from sea lions and giant tortoises to iguanas and several rare bird species.
That diversity heavily informed naturalist Charles Darwin when he visited the islands to research his landmark treatise “On the Origin of Species.” Darwin’s theory of evolution endures to this day, and so does his research station in the Galapagos.
Google Street View lets you tour that research station, along with many of the areas Darwin visited. (And some he didn’t.) That includes ancient magma tubes, coral reefs, mangrove tree-shrouded rivers, a giant tortoise breeding centre and a blue-footed booby nesting ground.
The Google cameras will even take you underwater to frolic with the sea lions and “grab shell” with the giant tortoises in their natural habitat.
You can also explore the darker history of the Galapagos Islands with a visit to the Wall of Tears, a stone expanse built by prisoners of Ecuador between 1945 and 1959. Each piece of the 25 metre-high wall is a meticulously-stacked, jagged slab of rock.
2. Underwater relics
If the ocean is your final frontier, there are several amazing Google Street Views that can take you beneath the waves to “paddle” around at your leisure. The Galapagos tour offers plenty in the way of natural beauty, but there are also several man-made, coral-infused attractions to explore.
One of the most fascinating underwater tours takes you to the underwater museum of Isla Mujeres near Cancun, Mexico, where several man-made statues that have been set up on the ocean floor and surrendered to the ocean environment. The Google tour starts at a barnacle-encrusted Volkswagen Beetle and takes you across the ocean floor to a collection of human statues, many of which are covered in coral and other underwater plant life.
Another Google Street View will take you through the wreckage of the Mary Celeste, a former merchant vessel that was discovered at sea as an abandoned “ghost ship” in 1872. The Mary Celeste was rebuilt after that discovery, then deliberately wrecked in 1885 near Bermuda.
The ship’s skeletal remains make for fascinating (though brief) visit on Google Street View.
The Aquarius Reef Base in the Florida Keys is a more lively experience. Google Street View lets you explore the barnacle-encrusted exterior of the research base, which looks like an underwater facility right out of a James Bond movie. You can even click your way inside the small research pod to examine the tight living quarters, research stations and dive pool used by astronauts and marine biologists in training.
3. South Pole explorer’s hut
Take a virtual trip back in time and go where few humans have ever tread with a Street View visit to a century-old explorer hut near the South Pole.
Scott’s Hut has been frozen in time since the 1910s, when it served as a shelter and base of operations for explorers mapping Antarctica for the British Empire. Explorer Robert Falcon Scott established the hut on Ross Island in 1911 as a shelter for his men against the harsh elements, and it would stand as a haven for many explorers afterward, including Sir Ernest Shackleton. Many relics from those Edwardian-era expeditions have been preserved at the hut to this day.
Google Street View lets you wander the snowy, barren landscape outside the hut, then duck inside to examine the surprisingly homey confines. The wood cabin has an old iron stove for heating, several small cots, animal skins hanging on the walls and a wealth of food rations lining shelves all around.
Look closely at the cabin walls and you can identify several bits of graffiti scrawled by the hands of long-dead explorers. One particularly prominent message scrawled in black was written by Ernest Joyce, a crewman who went on four Antarctic expeditions.
“Joyces skinning academy,” the message says. “Free.”
Scott’s Hut was abandoned in the late 1910s and dug out of the snow in 1950s. Britain and New Zealand have maintained the hut as a heritage site ever since.
4. Travel in luxury
For those who enjoy the journey as much as the destination, Google Street View offers some fascinating tours of the swankiest luxury cruise ships and airliners in the world.
One of those tours will take you through Emirates’ luxury A380 aircraft. The plane comes equipped with a shower spa, individual mini-bars in first class, flatbed seats in business class and a walk-up bar in the middle of the aircraft. Street View also includes a look inside the cockpit.
For those who prefer to travel by sea (or who don’t, but want to see what it’s like), cruise company Royal Caribbean International has recorded Street View photos of its Quantum of the Seas luxury liner. The tour will take you for a spin through the pool area, luxury bedrooms, solarium, gym, children’s play area and many other areas of the vessel.
