Change of Destination

After talking to my mum about the idea and askin if she had a book on SF I could borrow she mentioned an alternative destination. The Boston Freedom trail is a walking tour of boston which passes many historial locations from the time surrounding the war of independence. I have decided to take this walk instead of my trip to San Francisco as I also have a desire to go to boston and take a great interest in history. This is also probably americas most popular walking tour which makes it seem even more appropriate. The walk is also physically marked on the boston streets using a line of red bricks. This will make the walk even easier to follow accurately and is also interesting in that it is similar to the way google street view offers an augmented version of reality by adding lines and street names over the photographs.

Back to Square 1: Going to SF

Looks like im going to have to go back to my original idea of virtual tourism and using the interent to explore a strange place. I have chosen San Fransisco as my place of choice for my virtual holiday. I chose SF because of lots of reasons. Te massive physical distance between SF and my actual location of London means i dont fel like im cheating at all, it also somewhere i have always wanted to go although never have. Having never been there is important because i wouldn't want any previous experiences to enter into my virtual experience. San Fransisco is famous for its great deal of history, culture and architecture and i want to see how well these aspects come across over the online mediums i will be using. Also being in the states and being a big city means it will likely have a large amount of webcams and a more comprehensive representation on Google street view. Also the predominantly English speaking nature of the US means reduces the chances i will stumble onto websites i cannot read.

Havving said all this it would also be a good idea to try out the same experiment somewhere more obscure to see how the online experience compares. However i feel like starting relatively simple and easy is the best way.

I wanted to find an online guide book to the City with walking tours. This seems like the most logical and tourist like way to start my journey (ignoring any idea of taking a virtual flight to cali) and make sure i actually see some of the stuff people would likely go to see on holiday. However no such website appears to exist and so it looks like im gonna have to buy a book.