NY astride your iPod

Tune yourself in to the MP3 tours of the Big Apple…sightseeing up your alley!

An official tour guide holding high a flimsy umbrella to gather his offspring; a book offering advice and miracle tips about the city you’re in fact missing while reading its pages; a fully-packed tourism information video you must see before departing, from which data you’ll remember nothing when in situ; an spontaneous guru showing you charming passageways only known by natives to take a not allowed look to your wallet afterwards. What a dilemma, what to choose having the departure around the corner!

The exageration sickness makes me send out of orbit the fatalistic consequences of the traditional touristic guide, in his/her most common poses and portraits. Or perhaps I’m just using this argument to string together my love for New York (a), and for the MP3 tours that show it with humor and convenience (b). As the NY Times Travel article The ear can be your guide states (See article), a mob of amateurs and professionals have joined the challenge of the production of fresh podcasts to provide the visitors with the lightest, and cheapest tours: the downloadable audiotours. Journeys up and down clandestine bazars in China Town, walking routes around the Big Apple, the Soho, Queens, and who knows if the Bronx, empowered by the sole energy of your thumb. They´re ear-catching narrator voices able to install the passion for this always captivating city.

You won’t really want to forget your iPod.
And I keep on tangling up my will to come back to NY. Tuning up.

~ by travelandramble on October 2, 2007.