Turnhere: Short Films, Cool Places
Without a time machine or private jet, how can you visit Beale Street in Memphis, Koronet Pizza near 111th and Broadway in New York City, and the island of Roatan all in one day? The answer is as close as the nearest computer or iPod: Turnhere.com.
This intriguing website features dozens of short Internet videos produced by amateur and professional filmmakers. A local guide provides a three- to five-minute tour of their city, stopping in stores, restaurants and other businesses and attractions to give viewers a glimpse. Some of these guides ham it up; others take their role pretty seriously, but they’re real, often funny — take the professional competitive eater, for instance — and obviously enthusiastic.
Site visitors can search for videos by category — ”foodie havens,” “party towns,” for example — or by state, or by theme. You can also rate videos and comment. Links to establishments featured in the videos and to local tourist- and weather-related information run alongside.
While way more fun than rifling through any dog-eared guidebook, the videos hardly scratch the surface of the places they cover (in three minutes, this is not at all surprising). Nor is it clear whether the material is sponsored, or if individual establishments are featured because they’re truly standout gems.
That said, it’s still hard to stop clicking to the next video and the next after that: Toronto’s Chinatown, Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, Central Market in São Paulo. In the former, the guide, a Brazilian musician and cinematographer, samples bacalhau (salted codfish) and cachaça (liquor made from sugarcane), both national favorites.
I can’t say that Turnhere.com will move me to actually travel to the east side of Milwaukee or to Princeton, New Jersey (too many bow-ties). But Roatan or São Paulo, well…that’s a different story. — Kimberlee Roth
Kimberlee Roth is a writer and the founder of another website dedicated to hitting the road (or not): ShouldIDumpHimOrNot.com.
All contents copyright ©2001-2007 Roadside Magazine, Jenkintown, Pennsylvania