is Google Street View the new form of travel photography?  some might say no, but it is probably not something to discount as it is technically one way an individual can view a far off place from the comfort of their bed.  or even the subway on their way to work, pending of course that their city has WiFi available underground.  and after all, isn’t that what “traditional” travel photography allow us to do in the first place?

check out some of the amazing images below that were captured with Google Street View:

Aquarius Reef Base (Key Largo, Florida)

“Wieliczka” Salt Mine (Poland)

Bravuogn, Switzerland

Ceremonial South Pole

Bar in the Emirates A380 plane

looks like they were captured on someone’s vacation right?

Google seems to have enough belief in street view being on the same level of travel photography that they even created a new entity within their organization for it called Google Treks.  this is a place to showcase footage gathered from some of the world’s most exciting places.

one such place is the Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania, home to chimpanzees that were studied by Jane Goodall.

the image above is what you actually see on Google Street View.  you can check out the video below to see the footage put together by Google Maps:

another example?

South Georgia Island is roughly 1,100 miles from anywhere.  but no worries as you can explore the island from your home computer.  in this BBC video with Allison Busacca, you can see what goes into the making of mapping out a place for Google Street View.

while I don’t think that Google Street View will in any way replace traditional travel photography, I do think that it is a useful tool in helping to aid real images of a destination rather than the doctored photographs widely available now.

I wonder if Google is currently hiring for people to capture these images for street views…