MapMyRide.com for when you need a bike map

by Annie Scott on

In a strange city and trying to keep it green (or looking for a great way to get around and see the sights)? MapMyRide.com has bike maps. Like, Mapquest-style.

Biking is a great (and cheap!) way to see almost any city — and also to get out of the city. If you visit MapMyRide’s “Search for Rides” tab, you can find all kinds of adventures to take on your bike, maybe even some in your own town you didn’t know about. Central Park to Bear Mountain Round trip, anyone?

Additionally, they’re currently running a competition in which you can win $1000s and great prizes, including a trip to France, and all you have to do is ride your bike!

Don’t forget you can rent bicycles for free in NYC through September 30th, 2009. Now get out there and enjoy the summer!

The most accurate world map available as a free download

by Sean McLachlan on

Finally, our tax dollars going to something cool.

The folks at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, along with NASA and the Japanese government, have come together to make the world’s most accurate topo map. And it’s available for free!

The ASTER project, which stands for Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (say that ten times fast) is a minutely detailed look at the Earth using an instrument aboard Terra, a satellite that’s part of the Earth Observing System, EOS for short. It examines the differences in elevation, heat, and reflectivity on the Earth’s surface in order to study everything from forest cover to ice floes. This helps scientists understand and predict changes in the hugely complex system that is our little ball of clay.

One byproduct is the topo map, along with an amazing gallery of images of our world from above. These can be seen on their website.

You can download the maps for free from NASA’s EOS Digital Archive, where you’ll see a list of several ASTER products. Some cost, but some are free, such as the elevation model shown here.

Gadling TAKE FIVE: Week of May 16–May 22

by Jamie Rhein on

It’s been a week already since a bulk of Gadling writers descended upon Chicago. Now that Memorial Day weekend is upon us as a kick off to the summer, we’ve been gearing up to give you some tools for the road and ideas of where to head.

  • Sean, our newest Gadling blogger has graced us with a post on Oxford, England’s Pitt Rivers Museum. After it year of remodeling, the museum has reopened. Check out the gallery he’s included and details about the shrunken heads. The post is part of a new series Museum Junkie.
  • For anyone who has traveled with a pet, particularly a canine, finding a hotel that is happy to have Fido can be problematic. Annie’s post on the top five pet friendly budget hotel chains is a handy guide. I can vouch for La Quinta Inns, one of the suggestions. Staying there with our dog this past December was a breeze and it didn’t cost us one dime more.
  • Kraig, an adventurer to the max has been writing posts about his travels to the Amazon. The one on Iquitos, Peru covers what makes this region of the world so spectacular and is a starting off point for finding out what he discovered.
  • If you’re a “where did the film this scene?” kind of person, there’s a map designed just for you. Scott’s post on Where It’s At, a web site focused on pop culture landmarks is interactive. People can add the landmarks they know to help it grow.
  • As part of our budget summer travel series, Brenda suggests a trip to Molokai from Honolulu. It sounds simply fabulous.

Geotagging cameras create accidental maps

by Jeremy Kressmann on

One could easily spend hours browsing images on social photo-sharing sites like Flickr. From time to time I find myself on the site’s “interestingness” page, endlessly hitting the reload button and marvelling at all the beautiful photography. But one unintended consequence of all these photos has nothing to do with what they look like – it’s all the information like tags, camera type and location that’s created along with the images.

All that information has even allowed researchers to create virtual maps of the world’s most-photographed landmarks and places. According to the New Scientist, investigators at Cornell University have been analyzing the geotagged information automatically recorded by many new cameras when they take a picture. All the information has led to some interesting insight into what visitors find most interesting.

The top spots? New York tops the list as the world’s most photographed city. London however has the most photographed landmarks – sites like Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, the London Eye and the Tate Modern art gallery all top the landmark list. Coming in at fifth place? New York’s Fifth Avenue Apple Store.

[Via Metafilter]

Sit or Squat: Website helps you find a public toilet anywhere using your cell phone

by Jamie Rhein on

One of my fondest memories of the U.S. when I lived in a dusty village in The Gambia without indoor plumbing was the smell of my grandparents’ bathroom. I remembered it as smelling clean and fresh, like Charmin. Oh, how I missed it. (Actually, it might have been White Cloud, come to think of it.)

But, regardless, that’s not the reason to sing Charmin praises today. Today, it’s about public toilets. Charmin has a website SitorSquat.com that helps travelers locate a public toilet anywhere in the world. If you have a public toilet you know about that isn’t included, you can add it. The beauty of this system is you can access it with your phone.

When you type in a location, up comes a map with markers showing where the toilets are. For example, when I typed in Venice, Italy I found one toilet. Copenhagen, Denmark has three. Columbus, Ohio is a real toilet mecca. There are so many public toilets, the markers cover each other up in certain places.

Banjul, The Gambia doesn’t have any public toilet markers as of yet. Here’s a tip, for The Gambia that I have found works in other places as well. If you’re in a touristy area, duck into a hotel and look like you belong. There’s bound to be a toilet, just don’t ask where it is.

By the way, I used my computer to access the system. I’m a dinosaur when it comes to technology. My cell phone doesn’t even flip. I don’t even know how to play the games. But, if you go to the website you can get what you need to use your phone.

For a better description to how this service works, check out Tom Barlow’s post on Wallet Pop. He’s the guy who clued me in on Charmin’s endeavor and has the latest gismos.