Travel

There are many kinds of travelers. There are the ones who simply want to go from Point A to Point B without much bustle. There are the regulars on the travel circuits for whom the journey is more important than the destination. Then there are the ones who would love to travel but are moored to one place for whatever rhyme or reason.

Whether it is the backpacking thrill seeker or the armchair traveler, the internet is definitely the first place on the itinerary for most. The rich variety of travel websites cover every conceivable route to reach a destination and seek out its sights.

For a bit of live virtual sightseeing, you need travel videos. Travel videos are just the thing to satisfy the armchair traveler too while the hopeful tourist gets a third eye view of a travel destination.

Before you book your tickets, do some virtual sightseeing with the help of these ten websites.

When you land on Travelistic, the interactive map immediately tells you the number of videos each region has. Choose your destination by clicking on the map and then drilling down to the destination of your choice. Or you can go to the Browse Videos by Country list.

Tripfilms has 8000+ videos and a few more extra features that may induce you to keep this travel website in your plans for virtual sightseeing. All videos uploaded by the community of users get reward points (and rewards). You can be a ?vlogger by uploading travel videos and land yourself a job here. You can go on a junket and get paid for it too! The site has lots of tips and advice on how to shoot travel videos.

GeoBeats is a video travel guide that from first appearances looks like a well designed movie website. The travel videos are made by its global network of local filmmakers and that s why travel videos look absolutely professional. The videos may be short, but they are well researched and informative.

The destinations covered are mostly Europe and U.S centric with a few Latin American and Asian countries thrown in. But individual places are covered with a nice selection of local sights.

Zoomandgo takes the travel video searcher straight to the destination with an interactive travel map. You can pick where to go, what to see, what to do, and where to stay based on the pictures, videos, and reviews sent in by the travelers community. On the Google Map, you can choose to view pictures, videos, or both. Then use a slider to zoom to the location.

Videomap is another virtual sightseeing website which relies on a Google Map (or the Videomap 3D plug-in for Google Earth) to help you pinpoint the right travel location. You can also take the help of the Coverage Map which shows the number of videos per country. It is basically an Italian website but has English translations.

Its 1000+ videos may not yet matchup with the previous websites. But what you might like are its multiple map based tools to explore the world as a virtual tourist.

The traveler s website is the online version of ?The Compulsive Traveler series running on CBS. You can to the travel videos by People, Places. and Channels. The latter gives you instances like “ 10 Best Things to Do, Luxury Win Tours, Road Trips etc. These are just some of the broad variety this video travel guide covers.

Just like the previous website, The Travel Channel is the online arm of a TV travel show. There s also a high-definition online video service which may be available in some U.S locations. You can check it out with your ZIP code. They also provide travel related mobile content.

Just like the TV channel, you have worldwide coverage of sights, sounds, and smells. You can choose to cover ground by choosing Trips by Topic or even Spin the Globe. Voyage choices are aplenty from the 350+ destinations on the travel site.

The About page of this website defines travel videos aptly as ?backpack filmmaking . In fact, the online travel video website has a category by that name. The category dropdown also shows that most of the content is Australia centric, but why not, Australia is a great tourist destination isn t it?  There are some that cover Spain and Ireland too.

The website seemed to be down, but the YouTube channel is alive in all its wanderlust glory. You get free travel videos of Europe, Asia, USA and 400 other top destinations hosted on YouTube.

The Lonely Planet guidebook has always found a corner in the traveler s suitcase. One of the best websites for travel buffs has a place reserved exclusively for travel films. You can expect the coverage to be on the spot when it is owned by BBC Worldwide.

You can view videos by channel (check out the Bluelist and Encounters channels) or take to the interactive map. You can also post videos for public viewing and create your own playlists. This website is a must visit just like the Taj Mahal.

Hopefully these video travel guides will inspire you to get up from your armchair and explore the world. Are you a virtual globetrotter or a very real one? Let us know.