Posted on Monday, May 26th, 2014 by Rebecca Doctrow
Melbourne Remote Control Tourist offers an unscripted adventure where everyone who wanted got to write the story of 2 tourists while they explored the city.
When you’re backpacking or traveling through a new city, it is nice to have some sort of guide to help you through your trip. Most people pick up a guide book in their local bookstore. The Australian city of Melbourne took things one step farther and outfitted two tourists with video cameras and let the internet decide their trip. Over the course of four days in October, the public could Tweet or Facebook directions to these Remote Control Tourists (RCT) and live-streamed the videos. The internet sent them all over Melbourne trying coffee and food, visiting museums and more!
But October Was Months Ago…Tourists visiting Melbourne can still find the videos posted on this site. In addition to the short videos, you can see the path they traveled and a list of the locations the Remote Control Tourists visited. The website allows you to watch the videos or search for a specific type of attraction/location. When you search with the “map” function, it will pinpoint each of the specified attractions (i.e. cafes, shops, art, etc.) on a map that will allow you to click on each location and it will show you the address, website, a description of the location, and more. If you want to search with the “location” function, you will pull up the videos for the attraction type you specified.
Always Relevant!The tourism board of the city of Melbourne found a unique way to showcase their city to the world. Remote Control Tourist allowed the public to dictate the RTC’s trip around Melbourne in October, but will continue to be a great travel site for those looking to head to Melbourne in the future. Where most travel sites and guidebooks will give you a description of the attraction and may pinpoint must-sees for a trip, remote control tourist lets you interact with the employees at those places. For someone who places a lot of emphasis on friendliness and customer service when traveling, this is a great idea and I only wish other cities had the same idea.
