Keep a little mystery in your trip planning: Explorer Picture Mode shows a stylized version of every place instead of the real photo, so you can go by the description and reviews first and picture it your own way -- reveal the real photo any time by flipping the switch off, or just for one place at a time from its own page.
Create a free account to pick your own style (Vintage, Oil Painting, Black & White) and have it remembered next time you visit.
We strive to offer you a delightful and original travel guide experience.
Our information architecture makes it easy for you to zoom in on specific cities and attractions. Likewise, it is also as easy to zoom out to get a more regional, country, continental or even a world perspective. Therefore, you can also simply enjoy comparing places and attractions at the geo-zoom level that you want.
Be smart and avoid the crowds. We will progressively display estimates of tourist activity volume, using icons like 
, for many popular destinations like Venice. On top of helping you plan trips that are more culturally and environmentally responsible, our tourist crowd level tool could also help you find more interesting off-the-beaten-path travel experiences.
You can keep some of the magic of discovering places by yourself. Explorer Picture Mode (enabled by default, toggle it in the header) lets you choose if you want to keep part of the visual mystery or see real pictures of places. Most of the popular websites will now visually overload you with high-resolution detailed pictures. We find however that it is actually a nice feature NOT to see detailed images and leave more space to the imagination if we are planning to go visit places ourselves. So if you are looking for a more "Indiana Jones" adventure-type of feeling when browsing and planning your next trip, you are at the right place.
Venice is our example destination where we have the most useful information at this date. We are however expanding our places coverage and will roll out new cities and regions soon.