Travel Tips : Use Google Earth
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One of my favorite travel tips in to use Google Earth. Suppose you have seen a glossy brochure with a lovely blue swimming pool, coconuts hanging from a tree, and half-naked girls among the palm trees in the best hotel in Port Hedland. Well, it's all true. They wouldn't stoop to telling lies in their misleading advertising.
Power up Google Earth. (If you don't have it yet, go to pack.google.com and get your free download). Choose to fly to Port Hedland WA, Australia to get the satellite photographs. Don't zoom in yet to your hotel. Zoom out to get an idea of the surrounding countryside.
Why are those snow-fields to the Southwest in rectangles? They're not snow, they're salt flats round the salt refinery. You can see natural salt-flats further East.
Why does everything look red or brown? That's because everything is red or brown. In the UK a tree puts out every leaf that it can, to catch every ray of sunshine available. Here there is too much sun, so pictures by Australian artists show gleaming silver trunks against bare red soil, with a few leaves somewhere on the tree. These pictures are accurate. You might have to travel a hundred miles to see some lovely trees like that, but they do exist.
What is all the red about? The soil is full of iron ore, so is the color of rust. Not my idea of a pretty holiday resort. I do like the mangrove swamps around Port Hedland however.
OK, let's head South. Fly to Perth WA, Australia. Why does it look like a built-up area? Even when you zoom out, and zoom out a bit more? Well, Perth is about ninety miles from North to South, but if you look carefully, you can find some nature reserves and parks. It looks greener than Port Hedland, because people insist on having lawns in spite of the water restrictions. There are some very pretty spots if you know where to look.
Let's go further South still. Fly to Pemberton WA, Australia. It looks green, doesn't it? Zoom out. It still looks green. That is my sort of holiday destination. You can still die of thirst if you lose your way among the big trees, but there is water about if you know how to find it - not like Port Hedland.
OK, let's go to Scotland. Fly to Glasgow, Scotland. Now zoom out until you can see Stirling on the right. Does it look as if it is mostly built-up area? That's the impression that I got too, as I flew down from Denmark to Glasgow. Each village is separated from the next village by a couple of fields.
Loch Lomond still looks as lovely as ever - if you can position your camera to avoid seeing the tourist busses.
Do I have no travel tips for finding good travel locations? Yes use Google Earth to look before you leap. There are still many lovely natural locations on this earth. If you want to visit a night-club, why travel? When you've seen one you've seen them all. Google earth will help you to choose sights that you would like to see. You can even plan your hike through the hills by zooming in.
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