Hello, World!
This is the message that novice programmers learn first and that’s what I first saw, so to speak, when I was looking at a computer screen for the first time back in the days of my childhood.
Since then we have come a long way. When the World Wide Web became a big thing in the nineties, I curiously joined the community to see what the internet pioneers had to offer. The internet presented itself to me as a place of pure freedom filled with users willing to share their knowledge with everybody. Among the content providers there was hardly anybody whose main goal was to capitalize on the Web’s potential for generating earnings. Everybody spoke with everybody he met on the Web using the same language - English. There did not seem to be any borders, which was a big contrast to the real world where global economy was merely a futuristic concept and borders were very real and well-guarded.
While the world kept turning, the internet became more diverse. Today it much more mimics the real world and much less resembles the utopia that it seemed to be in the nineties. Nevertheless, two great achievements have survived: there are (mostly) still no borders on the internet and there still are the people and institutions whose goal is to share knowledge and experience.
Today I am a Local Guide from Germany, using Google Maps with the intial internet spirit in mind, hoping to keep it alive with my contributions. Maps can be so much more than just a means of navigation. I love to contribute to this by providing reviews to the places I have been to as a source of information for future visitors. Thus, they do not have to jump into the cold water as in the old days, when all you could do was to hope your choice of restaurant – perhaps based on what your friends told you or what you read in a tourist guide – was good enough. For any of your trips and other undertaking, there was indeed a much higher chance to run into a big disappointment than today.
Anyways, I think pictures say so much more than words. I am a also hobby photographer who loves to take many pictures on each of my trips. While looking at pictures from other photographers on Maps, I perceived their contribution as very helpful in getting an idea what the place I was searching for looked like, and, if the pictures were very artful, also as very enjoyable and pleasing. Therefore, I decided to post my best pictures there as well.
For you to get an idea what these pictures are and how they were taken, here are two of my most popular pictures from Google Maps.
The picture above was taken on a charter boat trip last fall in the Netherlands. We had tied up the boat at one of the many very remote piers on a canal after passing under way too many very flat bridges. Bridges that just left a few centimeters to navigate. I as the skipper was so happy to get a break because each time we had to pass one of these bridges my heartrate probably jumped to 180! Well, having a coffee during that break certainly did not help me with my heartrate either, but it was much deserved! Apparently the photo is of interest for quite a few Google Maps users. It is the one with the most views among my pictures on Maps.
These steps lead up to the San Juan hermitage on top of the Gaztelugatxe islet near Bilbao in Northern Spain. We went there on a holiday trip last summer. This islet is not only a very scenic place but also very popular with tourists and thus very crowded. Being the photographer I am, I dared to remove all the people from the photo. A work almost as exhausting as climbing the steps in the heat of the summer! I think it was worth it though. Both for the picture - the people have “magically” disappeared - and the trip - the view was spectacular as you can see!
I am hoping by adding many more reviews and photos of my future trips I will be able to keep that intial spirit of the internet alive and motivate others to do the same. Each post is only a tiny contribution to this cause and may not change much. But you never know. Have you heard of the butterfly effect?
Google Maps is not the only place where it matters, of course, and I am trying to let myself be guided by this spirit in all my activities – in the virtual world as well as in the real world. Maybe I can get someone to feel inspired by it. Or by some of the other people who do the same as me.
Greets,
Michael