Street view is great isn't it! Makes finding hotels much easier, shame not everywhere is covered.

yep, it will be so handy for me to get a feel of where we are going before we go. We got rather lost last time.

Slightly off topic but I have just used streetview to 'stand' outside my son's house in Melbourne!!. I have seen photo's of his house of course but seeing it for 'real' and in the context of the rest of the town is amazing!
How on earth did we cope before all this technology?

Thought I would check the hotel I have chosen in Spain. Can't see anything, all the buildings are greyed out.

denny.53 wrote:

Slightly off topic but I have just used streetview to 'stand' outside my son's house in Melbourne!!. I have seen photo's of his house of course but seeing it for 'real' and in the context of the rest of the town is amazing!
How on earth did we cope before all this technology?

I did that Denny when my son went to Oz, I was able to see his place and I was able to do it and see the apartment /area we rented.
It came in extremely useful when we were looking for somewhere to rent. I found owners websites were a bit naughty with photos being enhanced to make the sky bluer, the sea more bluer, to make everything look perfect, but you can't beat taking a 'walk' down the street and seeing what's around this supposedly fab apartment.

It won't be long now, Christmas will soon be here and then you can stand outside your son's house and give me a wave.

Sanji

I love google maps, in fact just before I came on to HT this morning I was looking up my hotel and the surrounding area, even though I've been 5 times before lol!

You can also use it to plot a route, save it and download your chosen route to your satnav. Very handy if you want to use a particular route, you are finding somewhere which is out of the way and satnav may send you down farm tracks or you need to get from A to B, but also want to visit three or four other places on the way.

I'm hoping to be in Streetview of Budapest once it's loaded, they were taking the pictures whilst I was there and since the car was stuck in traffic I kept up with it - they must have me in at least one frame!!

Anyway - carol, what do you mean "all the buildings are greyed out"? That sounds like the basic map. There are three levels , the map, the satellite images (which include aerial from planes) and Streeview. The level of zoom on the images varies by location and Streeview isn't available for everywhere (but should be as clear for all the places it does cover). And then there's Google Earth which is more complicated.

The maps at http://www.bing.com are similar, they have the option to show the aerial images in "birdseye view" - not strictly the right term but it allows you to "fly" around the building and look at it from different angles.

But never mind the hotels, how many of you have looked at a company you've never heard of and wondered if they are genuine? Find their contact address and look that up in Streetview.

This I what I mean Steve.

That's not streetview, see that little man? You drop him into the map area

Thanks Sanji - I will do that!

Ok, this is the street view, still greyed out.

carol - you're in Google Earth not simple Google maps. Try again starting at http://maps.google.co.uk , put the place in location, zoom in to see the streets better then click and hold the mouse on the little orange man and drag him over the map. The streets which are covered by Streetview should go blue. Release the man at the right point and it should give you the first frame, if it's not facing the right way you can steer using left and right arrows on the thing that looks like a compass, the up and down arrows change angle a bit. To move along the street point with the mouse, a litle searchlight beam should appear on teh ground, click on it. If the beam goes rectangular it's changed to zoom because you can't move to there.

If a street doesn't go blue as you drag the man acros sthe map it isn't available. If you get a lot of litlle blue dots instead they are just posted photos which the poster has given GPS coordinates for - they may not be right - and if you drop on one it will display.

Streetview images are usually between 1 and 5 years old.

for Bing "fly around" views start at http://www.bing.com/maps/ . Straight away it may get a bit odd because the controls may have wrong names! If you have a UK IP address it will probably say "London Street Maps" but don't worry, it will switch to whatever maps are available for your target. The next control will probably say "Birds Eye", this offers the option of an aerial view like Google but if you select BirdsEye it looks at an angle (sorry Carol, but Cambrils isn't covered yet). Right click and use the Centre map control on your target building. The Streetview style direction control will have curved arrows either side of it, as you click these the view angle moves around. Bing are working on their version of Streeview called Streetside but few places are ready yet.

I love street view, I have it on my phone to and its such a great tool on city breaks.

Its also good to reminisce and look around places you have visited in the past.

The most useful time I have found it is when we went to San Francisco, we got the BART train from the airport and got of at Powel st. Having studied street view and knowing the landmarks etc it was easy to find our hotel that was only a short walk away.

A fantastic tool indeed.

Thanks Steve, didn't realise there was another way of looking at Streetview.