Armchair Travel

I was most intrigued with the Flickr/Yahoo Trip Planner app. What a great tool - this is armchair travel at its best!

Trip Planner would have been a great way to document the crazy night I spent in Paris. My roommate (and best friend) and I had decided spur of the moment to spend the weekend in the great City of Light. We were bunking in Canterbury, England, where we spending a semester abroad from our little midwestern liberal arts college. "Hey," I said, "it's only 30 minutes to the coast and an hour's ferry ride to Calais. We can catch a train to Paris and be there in an hour! We'll find a hostel when we get there." And off we went, bless our hearts.

Long story short, we arrived to find that there were no hotel rooms or hostel rooms available ANYWHERE. Our spur of the moment trip landed us in Paris during the single most busiest weekend of the year. So, we walked the City all night with random strangers joining us along the way. (Including one very drunk English fellow who had a room he would have gladly shared if only he could remember where he was staying.)

Trip Planner would have shown us intrepid nocturnal tourists stopping at the Eiffel Tower, cruising up the Champs Elyess and viewing the Arc de Triomphe, splurging on a boat ride down the Seine (ah, blessed relief for our feet), viewing the immensity that is Notre Dame and the frequent stops at les bistros to fortify our strength with, first, wine and then, espresso. Quite a trip to document, and quite a trip to remember. Vividly.