Travel planning is a very important process. Usually, every tourist tries to find accommodation, transportation, and places to eat in advance. As for visiting attractions, you can make a list of places that you like. Then you simply rent a car through Sixt car rental Toronto and visit them. Everything is simple.
However, unlike hotels for which search services exist, there are no such services for sights. It’s surprising why so far nobody has made a thematic site, given the huge amount of publicly available information on the web.
Now it remains for advanced travelers to use on-line maps to search for objects that offer geotagging functions, that is, specifying the location of an object by its GPS coordinates. They all work roughly the same way, thus let’s look at some of them.
Google Maps
In 2005, Panoramio photo hosting appeared in the web. It differed from others in that for the first time in the world it allowed the users to upload photos with reference to geographic coordinates. So from the photos posted by users, a guide to interesting objects of the world began to form by itself.
Subsequently, Panoramio was bought by Google, and now its functionality became part of Google Maps. Thanks to this fact, with the help of Google Maps service, you can search for photos of interesting objects in any place you want to visit.
In order to do this, simply enable the display of a photo gallery on Google Maps, and it will show you interesting objects in the specified place, and even allow you to walk there with Google Street View.
By the way, thanks to Panoramio database, on Google Maps you can find not only popular tourist places, but also secret spots of the world, which nobody really knows about – except for you and the random person who uploaded the photo.
OpenStreetMap
According to many travelers, OpenStreetMap is the best mapping resource that exists today. In addition to the many functions, settings and other services based on its database, OSM offers exactly what each tourist needs – the ability to search for interesting objects on the map.
For this, there’s a setting on the OpenStreetMap map called Points of Interest (POI). Turn it on in the panel, select the types of sights and get a plenty of icons showing the location of various objects that are worth visiting.
Also, you can choose the types of attractions that are interesting exactly for you – from monuments to abandoned buildings. The list of objects is formed on the basis of places marked on the map by users, so that in OSM you can find even more interesting places, but, unfortunately, there are no photos.
Wikimapia
Wikimapia is a huge online guide collected by users from all over the world. Its purpose is to mark and describe all the geographical objects of the Earth on the satellite map.
With the help of Wikimapia, you can’t only find out the location of interesting objects on the map, but also see their photos, read short descriptions from Wikipedia, as well as reviews of those who have been there. The Wikimapia map is satellite, so it’s good for those who like to travel in the wild parts of the world. After all, in the satellite picture you can accidentally spot some picturesque waterfall, which will be right along the way of your tourist route.
It’s worth mentioning a little trick: Wikimapia objects are tagged. If you click on the ‘Landmark’ tag, then you can easily get on the map the selection of all the nearby attractions.
TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is a truly indispensable site and program, which is a search engine of hotels and various places, combined with a catalog of reviews and tips. This will help in any situation to find the best option, taking advantage of the collective user experience.
For each city TripAdvisor displays a list of required places to visit. Thanks to the application, you can instantly find out where the best hospital, hairdresser or spa is in the city. The information is based on user ratings.
The application works via the Internet, however, if you don’t have a local SIM card, you can download the Trip Advisor offline version. Also you can search for tickets through the application.
AroundMe
This is a very convenient, although not ideal application for finding the nearest infrastructure objects. The program interface is simple: you choose the point of interest – gas stations, car parks, pharmacies, bars, hospitals, or sights, and the application displays the nearest points on the map.
The tab ‘Nearby’ is especially useful for tourists – it displays articles in the Wikipedia about the closest attractions to the user. The application is free of charge and monetized by unobtrusive advertising, which can be turned off for a $1.