Something new and noteworthy has floated across my radar.
A video "insiders guide" to neighborhoods across the world boats the
TurnHere.com website, but their slogan does a better job of cutting to the quick of it: Short films. Cool places.
"TurnHere.com is a new Internet video destination which chronicles different neighborhoods and places across the country through the use of Internet video films. Created by professional and amateur filmmakers specifically for the Internet, TurnHere.com's high-quality videos offer a first-hand, insiders look at different destinations around the country, and are hosted by real people who live there. Films focus on the people, culture, history, local businesses and political landscapes specific to each destination."
Sarah Freddie,
a Japan-bound UMass Amherst student with a penchant for travel writing, explains in
a GoNomad article that it provides a
"unique alternative to the once quintessential travel guide. Turnhere.com is a website that features videos made specifically for the internet, chronicling destinations around the world... [that] give informed, insiders' perspectives into the locations they present."
I've watched several of the roughly two minute videos, and love the idea. Especially as the number of videos increases. It's still new and therefor a bit sparsely populated, and many of the videos I watched are primarily shilling for local businesses. And the video streaming isn't perfect even though I'm on a lightning fast connection. Videos get interrupted while streaming to let more data download which is frustrating, but it's probably just a symptom of early success that can be resolved by dilating their bandwidth.
In any event, the idea of a database of online videos that capture locales is a great travel planning tool, and I'm excited to watch it evolve.
