We’ve talked about virtual tourism before, but I didn’t realize how far some companies would take the idea until I came across an old article on a virtual travel agency in the French newspaper Liberation.
Synthravels is not your average travel agency. Instead of virtual tours of exotic sites around the globe, these guys go one step farther: extensive and in-depth tours in the wide world of cyberspace. What exactly does that mean? The travel agency offers their tours in the online gaming world, and opening it up to those of us who are less-experienced, less-inclined or just plain old technologically impaired. This is the agency to go to if you want your next travels to take you into the realms of Second Life, World of Warcraft and Sims Online. That’s right, just imagine your next tour could entail no packing, no missing a flight, no jet-lag, and most definitely no traveler’s diarrhea (unless the online gaming world makes you queasy.)
I’ve got to give it to them, as skeptical as I was, they make a good case, reminding us that cyberspace provides the adventurous with an undiscovered frontier, open for exploration. In fact, as geeky as it might seem, the concept of the agency is a creation of Mario Gerosa, a travel journalist and once the Senior Editor of Condé Nast Traveler Italy. They’re based in Milan, but all you need to get in touch is your good ‘ole computer, so you leave your suitcase in the closet.