Sunny Google Maps Hotels

I don't know what your idea of a winter holiday is, whether or not you have that classical Aspen idea of going skiing and sliding down the slopes and so on and so forth, but I personally think that's a lot of nothing to be done on two narrow pieces of wood or on one that's a little over twice as wide (the snowboard). It's just plain sitting in an angle so that you don't hit your head against the branches of the trees around. Oh, you like the clean slopes? That's even worse, it's 30 seconds of going down and a couple of hours to go up to the top again.

If you think you've found some critical or disapproving tone in what I've written above, don't worry, you're absolutely right! This is coming from somebody who had to move around town today via tube or per pedes apostolorum, as the car wouldn't start because of the cold.

That's why the three mashups that the Google Maps Mania blog presented today looked like a piece of heaven to me. Picture a clear sky with sun and a lot of sand and water around. Oh, and no cold, no steam when breathing, none of that, thank you! The first one is from the posh Sol Media Hotels and Resorts that used Google Maps to give potential customers a bird's eye view of all the 330 hotels and resorts they have. Oh, Bali, how about it? You and me�

The second one is PerfectEscapes, a tool to help you find one of over 22 hundred luxury hotels across 113 countries. The pin in the map gives contact information and pictures, as well as a short description. The last but not the least, we have Zoomarooma!, which Mike Pegg, of the Blog I mentioned above, says to be pure Google Maps mashup goodness. It gives you a fullscreen Google Maps viewport and all you have to do is to "Zoom to find a Room" almost anywhere.

That's about where I'd like to be, anywhere else rather than in this damn cold... I think I'll indulge myself with looking at pictures of warm and comfortable places some more...