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Author: Anonymous
Source: free-articles
Paris, ID July 31, 2004 — You may not hear them roaring past your house, or see them jamming the intersection, or smell the exhaust of their engines; but cyber-travelers from around the world cruise up and down the roads of America, visiting places busy and remote in their explorations. The site where all this unseen traffic takes place is www.UntraveledRoad.com.
Virtual Travel Technology, pioneered by Untraveled Road, LLC, photographically recreates streets, roads and trails online. Four pictures at each spot provide the view in each direction; and at intersections, users can turn and follow any of the photographed roads. Hundreds, or even thousands, of images of an area are needed to achieve complete coverage.
In addition to familiar-sounding places, a growing nationwide network of places famous and remote can be found on the site. Twenty-three national parks, including the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Mount Rainier, the Sequioa and Redwood forests and Death Valley are popular with cyber-travelers. Points as far apart as Anchorage, Alaska, the Florida beaches, and the Mexican border can be visited. Hundreds of miles of highways and dozens of towns in seventeen states often entertain viewers for hours at a time.
Untraveled Road author Kelvin Smith began development in 1999 ??” when the emergence of digital photography, coupled with the internet, made it possible to pursue the project. Beginning with the rural town of Paris, Idaho and the famed Grand Canyon, the network of pictures has gradually expanded to its current scope. As photographer, software engineer, accountant and weather forecaster, Mr. Smith has worn all the hats in bringing the project to fruition. The advent of content-based advertising has been a boon to the financial side, although registration fees (necessary only for those die-hard surfers who can’t stop at the 150 free page-per-day limit) complete the company’s revenue sources.
A major milestone in the project was the development of a proprietary database system which tracks photographs as they are taken, along with street names entered into a laptop computer. An automated system incorporates the portable database into the master one, and frequently new areas are online on the same day they are photographed.
From horse and buggy to trains, automobiles and airplanes, travel has evolved. While virtual travel is no replacement for the hands-on sights, sounds, smells and feel of visiting a place, nothing else can beat the convenience while replicating as closely the real-life experience.