See Bosnia & Herzegovina (via 10 Google sphere photos)

Android has a great way of taking not just 360 photos, but sphere photos. Well, recently I discovered that you can publish them so people can view via Google street view.

These are regular people’s photos, and while it isn’t everywhere, the photos are much better than the Google car images. Just drag on Google maps, and when you see a teal dot, that’s a sphere photo.

I figured I’d share the power of this feature, and show off how incredible Bosnia & Herzegovina is.

(Warning – it may take a minute to load these sphere photos).

(Also, all discovery was done via Google Maps).

Actually, I’ll back up and say that I discovered this because I wanted to see if I could see this amazing part of Bosnia & Herzegovina I didn’t get a photo of when I was there. I shared once a story of us rushing from the Montenegro boarder to get a hotel in Trebinje, and we drove past an amazing river with a sunken stone house. I’ll start with a photo from an imagine near that spot.

(Zoom in with the “+” in the bottom right).

Amazing. And that was our welcome to Bosnia & Herzegovina after winding down the mountains.

 

Trebinje

Trebinje was the first place we went in Bosnia &Herzegovina.

 

Mostar

Mostar was the first place we went after Trebinje.

 

 

That house on the water… (Blagaj)

You may also recognize it from our instagram here.

 

This little tiny town we stopped at.

 

 

Border of Montengro

 

 

Some place west of Mostar…

 

 

Medjugorje waterfall area?

 

 

 

Travnik?

 

 

Mt Prenj

 

 

How, Why, Conclusion & Other Countries

Why?

1) It shows the exact location of the photo, so it’s a great discovery tool.

2) It feels like you’re there.

3) It’s the best way to verify an off the beaten path destination is cool.

 

There aren’t a lot of resources for going to cool places with few tourists. Especially in Albania, Macedonia, or Montenegro.

How else can I discover a non-touristy place? And how else can I really know what they feel like ahead of time? Especially when there isn’t a lot documented about these towns otherwise.

Via top Google Sphere photos I seem to find the most beautiful places in a region, and not the most popular.

 

How?

You can not only search for a specific spot, but you can zoom out and when you drop the little streetview-man-icon, it chooses the most popular sphere photo. I can zoom really far out and see the best photos in the country. (I’m not exactly sure how it picks a photo for a region, but it’s usually the best).

Of course, it’s bias to certain areas. Afghanastan isn’t less beautiful than other places, but it might not have as cool of photos.

Or you can use Google Maps to search for a destination, and then click photos, and see which ones are popular spheres. Works for areas as general as a country… Then from the sphere you can see where it is on the map.

 

That said, there aren’t a ton of photos in Bosnia & Herzegovina, and it still is amazing. It doesn’t show the feel of how old school the Trebinje central market is (because there aren’t photos there), but it shows how beautiful the area is. The river water is just so consistently beautiful, it’s really something you have to see in person.

Other photo links for the road

Instead of embedding other 360 photos, I’ll just link to a few others I found about areas I’m curious about:

• Matera, Italy
• Amalfi, Italy
• Procida, Italy
• Dolomiti, Italy
• Bay Of Koto, Montenegro
• Zhangjiajie, China
• Fiji above & under water
• Angel Falls, Venezuela
• Machu Picchu, Peru
• Banff NP, Canada
• Havana, Cuba
• Jodhpur, India

Thanks!

Drew