Tour the World as if You Were a Local Photographer with Panoramio

Everyone likes taking photos nowadays. Since the advent of the smart-phone, photography is more popular than ever. You can check out local photos all over Instagram and Facebook, but what if you wanted to see photos that were done well? That’s where Panoramio comes to mind. It is a localized photo host for amateur and professional photographers, similar to Flickr, but with huge key differences.

All of the photos on Panoramio are geotagged. Photos are easy to find and how well they do depends on how they are rated by other people using the Panoramio’s built-in voting service. This makes it so poor quality photos are difficult to find as they often get buried beneath the surface.

The service hosts photo contests every month and it makes the best of the best photos available in a “winners” gallery.

Tours of specific areas can be created by photographers to provide multiple perspectives one one location.

Photos can be submitted into organized groups. One of my favorite is the HDR section.

Panoramio is a fun site to browse. I use it when considering  a vacation destination, or when just scoping out the local area around my residence.