I’ve managed to get in touch with a friend who I had not spoken to in years, who had left South Africa and moved to the UK, Kinderminster in fact… and it was thanks to her that I discovered the joys of arm chair travelling…

I’ve never left the border of South Africa, and while I’ve travelled to Jo’burg and Durban for work I haven’t really gotten to see much because I was always busy working. Now while I agree that this is no substitute for the real thing.

I’ve discovered a way you can still have fun and see things you wouldn’t normally see, All for the price of an internet connection from the comfort and safety of your favourite chair.
My friend has travelled all over Europe and oddly enough South Africa (she’s come back here for a few holidays to say Hi to family and friends) in her emails she would mention places she worked, things she saw and places she had been too, and because I was curious, I would go put the names of the places she gave me into Google to see what turned up. While I guess it could be considered a kind of “digital stalking” it was closer to having a guide show you around…
I was spending more and more time reading up about some of the places, I read reviews of the hotels she had worked in, read stories about people who stayed in the same towns and soon I was doing my own “travelling”. A site would mention a bar that you just had to go to and so I would find websites written by people who had been there and had written about it.
It’s amazing what you can find online, there are people who blog about there travels and put all there photos online on sites like flickr. Thanks to Google Maps you can get maps of the areas and if you have Google earth you can even see satellite pictures. Having someone you know fill you in on the little details and to point you in the right direction did make the whole thing that much more interesting, it added a bit of realism to it.

Since then I’ve chatted to and emailed other people I know and read some of the stuff friends have written about places they’ve been too.. and thanks to the internet I’ve been able to see at least some of the sights the places have to offer.

I will one day go to these places myself, I don’t think a picture can trully convey what it must feel like to wonder round a medieval castle, wonder through the ruins of a temple or the atmosphere in the local pub. But until I then.. I’ll make do with travelling on Google Airlines…