Help with your Google searches

Google Suggests

When you're searching, sometimes it's difficult to figure out what the best words to use for your search. Sometimes I mispell words.

Google Suggests tries to guess what you are going to type, and offers suggestions and refinements. These suggestions and recommendations can help you find ideas that you'd never even thought of before. They have an FAQ here.

For example, if you type in "Vancouver", Google suggests:
"Vancouver Sun" (daily newspaper)
"Vancouver weather"
"Vancouver canucks" (hockey)
"Vancouver airport"
"Vancouver public library"
"Vancouver craigslist"
"Vancouver giants" (junior hockey)
"Vancouver bc"
"Vancouver aquarium"
"Vancouver school board"

If I type "Vancouver r", I get:
"Vancouver restaurants"
"Vancouver real estate"
"Vancouver radio stations"
"Vancouver rentals"
"Vancouver radio", etc

Hmm cool, but I could probably figure out what I was looking for in Vancouver on my own. What if I wasn't sure what I was looking for?

Search: "origami" (Japanese paper folding)
Results: "origami crane"
"origami instructions"
"origami box"
"origami star"
"origami rose"
"origami paper"
"origami diagram"
"origami flower"
"origami flowers"
"origami swan"
Neat, so I could have found something cool, that I didn't even know existed before: an origami swan.

Search "scuba diving in"
Results:
"scuba diving in Hawaii"
"scuba diving in Thailand"
"scuba diving insurance"
"scuba diving in Florida"
"scuba diving in Australia"
"scuba diving information"
"scuba diving in Belize"
"scuba diving in Costa Rica"
"scuba diving in Cuba", etc

Wow!!! I'm getting excited about traveling already, and I've never even learned to scuba dive.

Self-Guided Walking Tours in Vancouver

Vancouver : Walking Tours Frommers.com

Walking is great! I like to walk. It’s even my name: Chris Walks.

I also feel that walking is best way to explore and get a real feel for a place. You get to experience the people, the buildings, the businesses and the flows of the community. You notice things and discover the secrets that you would otherwise just drive right past. If you're in a different culture, then you notice lots of tiny differences from your own. Walking is free. It's good for your health and the environment.
Today's link is from Frommers, the travel guide publishers. Their website is very well done, and seems very informative, detailed and well designed. It's not just a teaser for their books. For many cities, they have multiple walking tours, including maps.

If you’re visiting (or just exploring) beautiful Vancouver, these are some great routes for trekking round the city. Frommers has three different walking tours of Vancouver: Downtown & The West End, Gastown & Chinatown and Yaletown, Granville Island & Kitsilano. You might not need any guidebook or escorted tours if you can see it all on your own. The Vancouver tours are so good, I'm inclined to use Frommers walking tours whenever I travel. What a great budget travel site!