Missing travel? This virtual driving experience reminds us what it's like to cruise through cities such as Havana, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Moscow, and Zurich—complete with local radio on blast
Throughout this past year of restrictions on international travel, the internet has done its darnedest to come up with tech-driven transportive virtual experiences, salving our wanderlust with everything from virtual Japanese hot springs to stargazing at the Grand Canyon and forays into the ancient tombs of Egypt. From the comfort of our home offices, we've been able to explore designer gardens in Florence, Australia's Great Barrier Reef, a Leonardo da Vinci exhibition in Paris, and even Christmas around the world. It's all been wonderful and extraordinary.
But for anyone who's been craving an utterly ordinary, everyday travel experience—and maybe not a gilded opera house or a soul-stirring mountaintop sunrise—consider this: Drive & Listen, a new web app (which works on both desktop and mobile, but is way better in desktop) that simulates driving a car through the streets of some of our favourite cities in the world. The full-bleed video simulation gives the user a choice of 53 destinations, including but not limited to New York, Barcelona, Johannesburg, London, Munich, Mumbai, Rome, San Francisco, St Petersburg, and Seattle. Drivers can pick their speed—1x, 1.5x, or 2x—as well as street noise levels and a few local radio stations to flick through.