I won’t be spending my summer this year riding the rails in Europe, but I can still torture myself by reading articles about luxury trains and gourmet food. You can too, if you check out this excellent piece from the New York Times.

I know that i have been critical of the many AI websites that have been popping-up recently. However, at the risk of being a big hypocrite, I found the new AI powered travel recommendation app Where To ? to be worth a gander. The site creators promise: “Welcome to Where To AI! Through the power of AI you will discover new destinations, create unforgettable memories and find the best places to stay. What’s even better our AI does all the hard work for you! To get start pick from one our journeys below.”

I queried the bot to give me a three week itinerary for New Zealand that covered both islands and included some adventurous activities. Surprisingly, it offered suggestions that actually mirrored in many ways a trip that I took three years ago. The AI even suggested a small restaurant in Rotorua that I actually ate at.

Chronoscope World is a time machine to explore the history of the world by browsing maps dating back to 14th century B.C. More than 4,200 high-resolution maps can be displayed in a maps application on the correct geo location. You can just browse the world map or browse cities of the world.
Here’s San Francisco with 4 historical maps overlaid on the current city.
Here’s Amsterdam with 10 historical maps. Hint: The slider on the right controls the transparency of the overlaid map.
The site also includes special projects such as mapping the travels of Alexander Humboldt
Want an overview? The site’s creator made a short video.

I have been to the notorious underground Punk Music Museum in Reykjavik, but I didn’t know that there were at least nine other museums like it. These  institutions around the globe paying tribute to a transformative moment in musical and cultural history that continues to deliver aftershocks decades later. Here are some of them from Spin‘s list of “10 Punk Rock Museums Around The World That Prove Punk Will Never Die“:

If you’re curious about cycling your way through Europe, EuroVelo is a fantastic place to start your research. “EuroVelo incorporates existing and planned national and regional cycle routes into a single European network.” Detailed route plans with tons of images, video and downloadable GPX files. The most valuable part is perhaps the ‘News’ section which contains trip reviews and tips on what to see along the way.

I was blown away by this very trippy video that was created using photogrammetry. The Sofa Hotel’s structure was rebuilt in three dimensions using laser scanners, and then brought to life by texturing the walls, floors, ceiling, and furniture using over 10,000 photographs.

NB: If the video fails to load, please visit our home page.

• To Be  is a digital poem by Alicia Guo – it’s infinite and self-generating, and I don’t quite know how it works or where it’s pulling the words from, but each time it’s different and each time it’s fragmented and magical and silly and poignant and confusing and beautiful.