If you’ve ever taken a trip and had it fall far below your expectations, you know how horribly disappointing it can be. Especially if you’re someone working with limited time or on a limited budget, the pressure to have the place you’re visiting be everything you want and need it to be can be unsoundly high. Fortunately, we no longer live in a world where we’re at the mercy of going by the reviews of the people around us. In fact, we no longer even have to rely on the reviews of people online. Thanks to features like travel site dealchecker’s Try Before You Fly, you can now virtually tour a destination before taking the plunge, potentially making bad vacations a thing of the past.
While the different ways to capture and experience them are constantly evolving, virtual tours are nothing new. Before being lucky enough to start actually venturing off to experience the travels I was writing about (something I still can’t believe I’m lucky enough to be doing) I used to spend countless hours on Google Street View, exploring wherever I could. As great as this is compared to how limited you were before this was introduced, it could definitely be better as far as checking out a place before you decide to trek over there. Though you’re not limited to only what you can see on streets like you used to be, you definitely have to know what you’re looking for if efficiency matters at all to you. I never made a list beforehand, so if I did happen to find somewhere I liked, something as simple as locating another place to check out in the area required at least a few searches on its own. It’s here that the beauty behind Try Before You Fly lies.
With dealchecker’s new feature, you can now take virtual tours of tons of stuff an area has to offer without even having to leave the page. My current obsession is with their tour of the Greek Islands. I had the opportunity to briefly visit a few last year on a cruise I took with my fiancée, Sarah. Unfortunately, as it goes with typical cruises, we didn’t get to spend as much time there as we maybe would have liked (not complaining though, cruises are great tasters). That said, we’ve been discussing going back sometime soon to experience some of the things we missed out on while there—as well as revisiting the places we fell in love with—and Try Before You Fly has been an awesome asset to our planning. If I had to find a fault with it, it might be that everywhere looks a little too enticing, as it’s looking like we might end up having to make this a longer trip than we originally intended.
