The Mousepad TravelerClicking through cyberspace on a virtual tour
February 11, 1998 (CNN) -- Ah, to live a life of leisure -- to travel anywhere, anytime, see anything, everything.... But for most of us, travel time is limited by budget, work, family and sometimes just plain luck. Still, there is a place we can go to see very nearly anything, anytime -- and all it costs is whatever we pay an Internet Service Provider to get us into cyberspace. Virtual tours are a natural for the Internet, ranging from simple travelogues to multimedia adventures, from boardwalks to bridges and from ancient ruins to modern concert halls. Choose your destination, and let the wonders of modern technology take you there.
On the West coast of the United States, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge is one of the country's most recognizable landmarks -- and yes, it's possible to walk across the bridge in virtual reality. The Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District provides an opportunity to "walk the bridge" with a JavaScript-driven site that allows walkers to look up, down, behind, right, left -- even take the elevator to the top of one of the 61-year-old bridge's towers -- while virtually walking across the 8,981-foot (2,737-meter) span. The Golden Gate site includes four Quick Time Virtual Reality movies -- 360-degree panoramas from four locations around the bridge. Across the continent, a non-Java trip awaits visitors to Atlantic City. The Virtual Boardwalk Tour has stops at major casinos and hotels, with smaller pictures noting sights around the stop. Old postcards offer glimpses of the United States' most famous boardwalk in earlier times. Virtual Atlantic City also includes a virtual car tour and a virtual helicopter tour of the East Coast resort town.
Across the Atlantic, the Tower of London beckons visitors to give the password and enter its centuries-old gates. If you can't make the trip to London, the tour is online. This tour is heavy on the text -- but the Tower is too history-rich for anything less. The tour is extensive -- from the cell where Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned, to the site of the block where those who displeased the king lost their heads, to the Yeoman warders in their familiar red and gold-trimmed dress uniforms. The Tower site offers a kid's tour as well, a little less gory and led by Reginald the Raven -- and there's even a virtual post office where you can send friends a postcard from your visit to the tower. Quite by accident more than 25 years ago, a German mayor uncovered a well-preserved Roman villa that had been buried for 1,700 years. Further excavations revealed a temple area and baths -- and the village of Hechingen-Stein had a bonafide archaeological tourist attraction: The Roman Open Air Museum. A tour of the site is available online, along with background material on Roman activity in southwestern Germany. Though not nearly as old, New York's Carnegie Hall certainly has a fabled reputation. A virtual visit to Carnegie's site provides a walk-through tour -- introduced by Isaac Stern and narrated by archivist Gino Francesconi -- taking the virtual tourist backstage, through the lobby, and into the hall itself. An IPIX "photobubble" gives a spherical view inside the 107-year-old building -- from the third row.
Some stunning virtual tours can be found at China Virtual Tours, where tour operators add two new online excursions per month into the world's third largest country. Especially interesting -- and valuable -- the Yangtze River tour, covering the magnificent Three Gorges area, which will be flooded when China finishes a massive dam project. The site features breathtaking photographs, plenty of explanatory text and maps. Museums have long taken advantage of the Internet to display at least part of their exhibits, and certainly their calendars. These days, it's even possible to see some the treasures of Paris' Louvre online. Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry has a Web site that is very nearly as interactive as the actual museum. The site employs QTVRs and regular Quick Time movies, plenty of pictures, sound files and ShockWaves to present a German U-boat, the Lunar Module used for training by Apollo astronauts, a coal mine, a construction site and much, much more. A more sedate museum, but close to as much fun, is Coral Gables, Florida's Museum of Advertising Icons. The Web site shows the interior of the museum (complete with security guard Earl, who has his own page) and wall after wall of advertising icons. Thousands of toys, like a Campbell's Soup Kid Chef Doll, Tony the Tiger and the Michelin Man, line the shelves. Each item is catalogued online, with a little history of how it came to be an advertising icon. And that's just a scratch on the virtual tour surface. There are castle tours, Italian Renaissance Garden tours, and Australian diving tours. There are IPIX galleries and QTVR galleries too. Bottom line: you can go there, without even leaving your seat. 
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