ViaMichelin.com: The Google Maps of Europe

by Neil Woodburn on

Renting a car in Europe and planning on using Google Maps to get around?

Think again.

Google Maps are rather worthless for driving directions in Europe. Although I’m sure this will change as Google slowly conquers the world, the current site to visit when trying to figure out how to get from Euro Point A to Euro Point B is ViaMichelin.com.

It’s a rather good marketing effort for a tire company to launch such a site, but it makes me wonder if they suggest slightly longer routes just to grind down those tires a little bit faster. Or perhaps they recommend minor detours along poorly maintained roads where blown tires are commonplace.

Nefarious marketing practices aside, ViaMichelin remains your best bet for driving directions in Europe.

Google Street View now in Los Angeles

by Neil Woodburn on

It’s about time!

Google Maps Street View has finally made it to my home town of Los Angeles. This means that people around the world can now zoom in on Los Angelenos going about their day and doing the thing that Los Angelenos do, whatever that might be.

Naturally, a number of enthusiasts have already been scouring the Los Angeles footage for the bizarre and wacky, as well as quintessential slices of LA captured by the roving Google van.

So far the diligent mapophiles have discovered storm troopers on Hollywood Boulevard and a knife sharpening van parked in front of O.J. Simpson’s old house on Rockingham.

Naturally I checked out the place I lived and was relieved to discover there are no incriminating photographs of me doing something stupid. Yet.

Related: Los Angeles destination guide

Brits Unable to Read Maps?

by Catherine Bodry on

Well, okay, a lot of them probably can read a map. But a poll by insurance company eSure revealed that nearly three-fourths (or 11 million) Brits are unable to identify a motorway road symbol. And only one percent would pass the Cub Scout Map Reader badge test. Yowza.

Part of the problem seems to be that many British citizens have become too reliant upon satellite navigation systems. “Technology is great,” says Scott Sinclair of national mapping agency Ordnance Survey, “but the batteries won’t run out on a paper map.”

The survey was based on a poll of 1,000 drivers and concluded that Britons’ poor map-reading skills wasted 36 million miles driven each year.

[via Reuters]

Vintage Globalization

by Brett Atkinson on

After Sunday brunch yesterday I went for a wander around the antique stores and retro shops of Auckland’s bohemian Ponsonby neighbourhood. Amidst the array of interesting tat were a few globes from earlier times. Like the antique maps I collect (when I can afford to…), the faded tin mementos show a world very different from 2007. The USSR stretches in subtle pink from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and Africa’s troubled nation Zimbabwe is still dubbed Rhodesia. A country called Yugoslavia stretches from Ljubljana to Skopje and even Vietnam is divided at the 17th parallel.

Now we happily skim the planet via Google Earth, but there’s still something thrilling about spinning a globe and stopping it randomly with your finger.

The picture is of a globe nightlight I once had in a rustic pension in the Czech ski centre of Pec Pod Snezkou.

Nina Katchadourian: Geographic Art

by Kelly Amabile on

Nina Katchadourian is a multimedia artist who works with video, sound, photography, paper and sculpture forms. One of the subjects that she explores often in her artwork is geography and maps. Take a look at some of the cool stuff she has done: shredded paper maps of actual roadway networks or subway systems; geographic pathologies and moss maps, discovered from actual lichen growing on granite in Finland.

I’m a big fan of the use of maps and travel themes in artistic statements, so I now count myself as one of Katchadourian’s newest fans. This segment of her work portrays visual disordering or dissecting of her surroundings — her own personal spin on geography and the world. A new monograph, All Forms of Attraction, showcases a variety of her work over the years. Her Airplane Family Tree and Paranormal Postcards are other examples of travel-inspired collections:

Be sure to poke around Katchadourian’s cleverly designed website — there’s lots of interesting and inspiring things to see, especially for artsy travel lovin’ folks. Her next public exhibit focuses on another subject dear to my heart — books! What We Keep: An Exhibition on Books and Memory opens August 3 at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Idaho.