Local Blogging Tour Guides – Cornfield Mazes, Cabins, Flying, Satellite Photos, and Landmarks

While some bloggers babble about politics, medical issues, and current events, some share their love of their area and the exciting and fun things going on in the neighborhood – or at least within driving distance.

Wasted Days Wasted Nights blogs about going on a date through the nearby cornfield maze in Huntsville, Alabama.

Neat, huh! It was 14 acres big and believe me, you’ll do a lot of walking to make your way through. I was starting to think we’d be lost in there forever, it was totally dark (it doesn’t open until dusk), the paths looped and twisted and doubled back until you got totally turned around. The corn was way too tall to see over and smoke machines created a fog that you had to feel your way through, but you could hear the screams of others echoing all around you.

J. Kingston Pierce reports in his blog about the end of a journey landmark in Oregon when the replica of Fort Clatsop was destroyed by fire recently.

The community-built replica of Fort Clatsop, where the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition camped during the winter of 1805-06, after trekking west across the United States’ newly acquired Louisiana Purchase and all the way to the Pacific Ocean–a distance of 3,700 miles.

Having visited it myself, I was saddened to see this loss of a local landmark, but if it hadn’t been blogged about, I might not have seen the story.

Olivia Drab posts “Not That Anyone Cares” a list of the distance between her and local landmarks in Atlanta, Georgia.

Brenda blogs about her fear of flying being overcome as she flies over Tyne, UK, in a helicopter photographing the local landmarks from the air. She invites people to spot public and private landmarks and leave notes about what they found in her pictures on her Flickr account.

Confronted with zoning law changes to his neighborhood, Internet Time blogged about helping save Berkley landmarks in his neighborhood community in California.

SFist is a blog dedicated to San Franscisco, and covers a lot of landmark and sightseeing topics, similar to many Gothamist blogs. A few interesting blog posts in SFist include Staggering Through Fog and Landmark This, Baby about the San Francisco Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board meeting to choose 10 buildings or places to recommend to the Board of Supes for possible landmark status, including the famous Doggie Diner head. For more on a metro-oriented blog in your area, check out Gothamist and also MetroBlogging.

In Manila Rat – Madrid-Manila – An Introduction, the blogger discusses living in Spain as a Filipino, longing for home but realizing that home is also a state of mind.

A friend asked me what I learned from living alone in Madrid last year. My one resounding answer: I learned that I love the Philippines. I am Filipino, through and through, and there’s no need to apologize for my sheltered upbringing. It’s a point of departure, but what is crucial is that I do depart from it.

I grew up without using public transportation, without going to the wet market to handle fish and bloody pork, without doing my own laundry. My concept of Philippine life was life in Manila, and life in Manila was school-mall-church-village. I lived in gated subdivisions and exclusive Catholic schools, opened very few newspapers, and cheated Rizal by reading Noli Me Tangere in comics. And worse, I always felt (justifiably so, I thought) that I was more in touch with my country than most of my peers. At least I’d have yearly trips to Bicol and Baguio to “ground” me. At least I knew that the best pastillas were made from carabao’s milk, that matamis na bao also went well with kamoteng kahoy and that shing-a-ling wasn’t just a catchphrase.

Certainly not substantial things to be proud of, but fact of life. My world was small.

If you are looking for blogs with a broader perspective, Google Sightseeing turns Google Maps and Google Earth into road maps for best tourist spots in the world via satellite images. They aren’t the only ones. A lot of bloggers are using Google Maps and Google Earth to check out their location or favorite places.

Do you have a favorite local landmark or tour guide blog?

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