Hi, Steemers!

It's been a while since my last post on steemit due to various reasons. I'm not going to come up with various excuses, but just say that I'm back and extremely happy to contibute here again.

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Is Travel Your Passion?

Every person in the world wants to visit as many countries and see as many sights and attractions as he could. But our desires often do not coincide with the possibilities, and sometimes we want to go to such places, which ordinary people are even not allowed to enter. So I would like to tell you about such places and how to visit them virtually, spending no money!

If your dream is to travel all around the world and look at all beautiful and famous sights without spending a lot of money and time, then Google Street View - it is exactly the thing that you need. You can travel anywhere in the world through advanced satellite technology, even sitting on your sofa and drinking a cool lemonade.
Street View project is now called as one of Google's most ambitious undertakings since the foundation of the company. And this is not really surprising as Google team travelled all over the world for hundreds of thousands of kilometers just to make the most complete and accurate digital copy of the entire globe for you! However, that wasn’t enough for these guys, and they decided to go further and show you not only busy and boring streets, highways and forests, no, they even digitized all the most unexpected and notable places all over the world!

I couldn’t wait longer and so I compiled this list to help you start your unforgettable journey in the world full of most beautiful and famous places in the word that you would have never been able to visit yourself. So where would you like to go? Maybe you want to dive to the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef? Or to the "Diagon Alley" from the Harry Potter books? Or even visit the Data Center of Google?

Diagon Alley

Diagon Alley - is a meandering street in the world of Harry Potter. Here and nowhere else, you can buy a magical animal and broom for quidditch, magic wand and cloak of invisibility, sweets with a taste of vomiting and a love potion, and even if you are lucky, you will see the Philosopher's Stone. And of course, do not forget to feel yourself like a hero of the books about Harry Potter.

Visit "Diagon Alley" right now

Great Barrier Reef

Previously, more than a million tourists came to the Great Barrier Reef every year to enjoy the splendor and a huge variety of underwater inhabitants. Now the authorities have limited the range of tourists, who are allowed to enter the country, as the popularity of this wonder also was its biggest problem, because people considerably spoiled the local ecosystem and partially destroyed the beautiful reef.
But do not worry! With Google Street View you can enjoy the natural beauty of these places and take a look at every fish-clown even without coming to Australia.

Visit Great Barrier Reef

White House (United States)

Yes, you heard right – you can visit (virtually, of course) the official residence of the US President! Here you can explore the entire layout and internal decoration of the White House, learn US history walking through the magnificent white corridors, and understand whether you know all US presidents or you have to go home and open the Wikipedia.

Visit White House

Fukushima and surroundings - Japanese alienation zone

In 2011, a new place which the ordinary man is completely prohibited to enter appeared in Japan, - it is a nuclear power plant, Fukushima, and a couple of cities in which hundreds of people used to live. After a disaster people moved out and these places became ghost towns.
In the spring of 2013, two years after the accident Google Street View service gave these people an opportunity to see their home towns, and the entire world could see the consequences of a terrible catastrophe.

Visit Fukushima

Data Center of Google (USA)

This is the holy of holies - Google data center, where the speed of Internet is 200,000 times more than at your home! By the way, Google Street View works because of this place! This center also ensures the uninterrupted work of YouTube and Facebook, so it is easy to understand its enormous scale.

Visit Google Data center

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There is plenty of other sites that can be visited with Google View. I have listed five that I like most. Please check this web-site. Right from there you can walk around biggest ever airplane (Emirates A-380), visit CERN or descend underground into the Iwami Silver Mine.

Want to become Google Street View team member?

Did you know that anyone could become a member of the Google Street View team? Many of the places that we showed above appeared in this service because of the efforts of enthusiasts who came to Google with a desire to show the most exciting, interesting, unexpected and famous places of our beautiful planet for billions of Internet users.
Google has even created a program for such enthusiasts. You can apply here and affix a full description of your project, and if it would be interesting for the company, you will get a special backpack with a panoramic Google Street View camera, and of course they would finance your idea - fully or partially – this depends on how enthusiastic you are.

So you see that there are a lot of secret places on our planet. Yeah, it is not the full list of them, I know, but I hope that after reading this post you have known and seen something new and totally interesting and it would somehow change your life.

Follow me to be the first to learn about my scientific and educational articles.

Alex