Trek Earth

photo © Maciek Duczynski
Maciek Duczynski's gallery includes photographs of Italy, Sweden, Poland, Iceland and Croatia... I find his photographs of Norway particularly striking and unusually beautiful.

New favorite website. Trek Earth has gallery upon gallery of photographs taken all over the world by what appear to be both amateur and professional photographers. While you can certainly search Google or Flickr for images of these same places, the difference is that these photographs have been uploaded for the specific purpose of sharing the travel experience. Typically the images are of high quality (and often quite breathtaking), while a Google or Flickr search will result in a hodgepodge of good, bad and occasionally quite ugly. The photographs are organized by country, region, and city or town. You can look up any place on earth. The city where my mother grew up in Australia - which I had seen few photos of before, the place where my friend lives in Scotland, the small town in the Southern United States that I call home - They are all there. Places I have been. Places I have dreamed of visiting. I am completely thrilled with this treasure chest of gorgeous images. Pick a place, search on Trek Earth, and spend a few minutes transported.



photo © Tom Hill
This street in Edinburgh is very near where my friend lives and, to my mind, does a good job of capturing the feel of walking those streets.