Now the world’s truly at your fingertips

DON’T know about you but I’ve just been ‘driving’ down The Mall to look at Buckingham Palace. Then I took a cruise along Scarborough seafront and ended up admiring the views while parked at the foot of Ben Nevis.

We can all do it — simply by using Google Street View.

This fantastic free online resource has been expanded to cover ten million miles of roads across 85 countries.

You can use it to drive like the yellow cabs through New York’s Times Square, cruise under the palms of Ipanema promenade in Rio’s sunshine or tackle Top Gear’s challenging wiggly mountain favourite, the Stelvio Pass through the Alps.

Street View now offers more travel experiences than anyone could have in a lifetime. It includes the chance to tour non-street locations too, rang

ing from the International tional Space Station (surprisingly singly big inside) the Large Hadron adron Collider in Switzerland (looks a bit like B&Q) or my favourite, vourntarcs Scott’s Hut in the Antarctic (the wooden beds look really uncomfortable).

The free online service ce began as an offshoot of Google Maps in 2007. It has grown to become a major service in its own right.

Today you can have a sneak sneaky look around the White House, explore the inter interior of an Emirates luxury airliner and visit a long l list of great museums aroun around the world. I’ve been a Street View addic addict since well before the lock lockdown. I once broke th the world record for ( (real) driving to the most countries in 24 hours (I did 12) and I’ve p planned many overseas d drives by checking the roads first online. At the moment, of course, I can travel using Street View so I’ve been distracting myself by taking trips past houses where I used to live, places I’ve stayed on holiday and researching future real journeys.

You don’t even have to ‘leave’ the UK to take enthralling trips.

Top British Street View drives include passing through Cheddar Gorge, the pass at Hardknott Fort in the Lake District or the majestic Glencoe in Scotland.

Street View technology has grown along with its mileage. Try using

instantstreetview.com to whizz straight to locations without having to go through Google Maps. Street View is the basis of a simple game that’s fun to play with children while teaching them geography. GeoGuessr ( geoguessr. com) dumps you in a random street somewhere in the world. You must guess where you are as quickly as possible using cultural, botanical and architectural clues. One of the best discoveries to be made by armchair Street View travellers is in Earl’s Court Road in West London. The police box outside the Tube station appears normal as you pass along the street but click on the door and Google whisks you into the interior. . . of Doctor Who’s Tardis.