Digital Walking Tours the New Do-it-Yourself Tour Trend
Digital walking tours provide you an immersive means to enhance your traveler experience and offer a deeper sense of place.
Now tech-savvy travelers can have information about their vacation called up at a click of an app. As the digital walking tours play on their mobile devices, travelers enjoy a more enhanced experience. It goes without saying, these do-it-yourself virtual tours are especially embraced by teens and millennials. They, of course, are used to having information conveniently and immediately available to them.
Digital Virtual Tours DeMystified
Digital virtual tours are simulations of an existing location. The tour is usually composed of a sequence of videos or still images. Likewise, it also uses other multimedia elements such as sound effects, music, narration, and text. Many of these tours also include mapping tools such as Google Maps.
People can get information and experience which may not otherwise be available to them, preview a location before an actual visit, and make more informed plans and selection.
[ctt template=”8″ link=”DJdaY” via=”no” ]Sea Ranch’s virtual tours close the gap between the experiences you think we offer and what special discoveries you can personally experience.[/ctt]They help close the expectation gap between what experiences you think a location may offer and what special discoveries you can personally experience.

They can be enjoyed in the comfort of your home’s favorite chair. Or better, they can be loaded up on your electronic devices such as tablet or smartphone and taken with you on your vacation.

With a click of an app your vacation experience is complemented with in-depth explanation and detail of what you see in front of you.
Digital virtue tours can also include videos that provide a sampling of what you too could experience at the location. They offer up a “Sense of Place” as explained by Matt Landau of VRMB
Apps, Audio Downloads Enhance Sea Ranch’s Distinctive Sense of Place
Today’s traveler rarely leaves home without their smartphone and/or tablet and now there’s even more cause to have it ready for your Sea Ranch vacation. To enhance your experience while staying at Sea Ranch, we recommend our visiting digital nomads download these apps and audio tours before you set out to discover amazing Sea Ranch.
“PLACENOTES” ~ The Sea Ranch Digital Edition
Modern-day explorers will find Placenotes, a newly created digital guide our collection of Sea Ranch digital walking tours. In addition, this app is an easy means to access new layers of images and information about landscape and architecture, flora and fauna, culture and history. Placenotes was created and sold by the Charles Moore Foundation. It was developed as a travel guide to lead people to places that truly matter. It aspires to guide you. Accordingly you are not lead to the everyday mundane, but rather to the places that move, inspire, and amuse us. It’s a guide to places that linger in our memories and imagination. Wonderfully digital, the Placenotes App will soon be available for purchase for all of your mobile devices. It’s cost is $8.95.
The Sea Ranch Audio Walking Tour
Hear Donlyn Lyndon Personally Describe Sea Ranch
One of the first digital walking tours developed for our community, The Sea Ranch Audio Walking Tour provides an introduction to the architecture and landscape of The Sea Ranch. As you walk along the trails it highlights the ideas and features that have made Sea Ranch Architecture world renowned. The audio walking tour allows you to explore and experience The Sea Ranch buildings on your own…walking in the field with a mobile device or at home.
You are guided to where the first Sea Ranch buildings were built. You then hear descriptions of the landscape that surrounded and how it has changed.
A Unique Opportunity
Notably, what makes the audio tour unique is its author and narrator, Donlyn Lyndon. Donlyn was one of the original architects. Through this self-guided audio tour he explains first hand what was intended in planning The Sea Ranch. You hear from him the planning it took to create these first buildings. Lyndon comments, as well, on the evolution of the landscape during the subsequent fifty years.
Pair the Audio Tour with the Architecture Tour
It should be noted here that the audio tour guides you along the walking trails of the area. Similarly, like our other digital walking tours, this is not a house tour. With this in mind, the audio tour does not include visits to the interiors of homes or condominiums.
Rather, the audio tour is a celebration of the larger landscape. The tour specifically examines the ways in which architecture and its placement can combine with landscape. This unique blending of building to Sea Ranch’s distinctive features creates a very distinctive sense of place.
Move Beyond Virtual to Face to Face Experience
However, if you are curious about the interiors of some of Sea Ranch’s iconic architectural gems, then we recommend you attend the unplugged Sea Ranch Architecture Tour sponsored by the Soroptimists. This annual special event is scheduled the Saturday before Mother’s Day. Docents are available at each house to point out highlights for you. Homes on the tour will also have the architect, designer, and/or builder there as well!
The best part of this experience is you can have a face to face discussion with the architect. What a great opportunity to delve into Sea Ranch’s philosophy of living lightly on the land! Subsequently, you can ask about the nuances in his style and design. Then ask with the owners how that philosophy has translated to their homes.
After the tour head on over to the Gualala Art Center for their toast to Sonoma wines and local artists at the Wine Tasting & Silent Auction.
A Word to the Wise- Book Early!
In the light of the Architecture Tour’s popularity, you’d be wise to book your reservation at a Vacation Rental home NOW! For this reason, you’ll find homes are limited if not available. Furthermore, be sure to get your tickets to the tour and Wine tasting event early before they’re gone too.
Failing an early booking, you’ll just have to visualize the tour on your app at home!
Need a Place to Stay? Why Not Abalone Bay!
Notably, Abalone Bay has been booked sense last year! Therefore, let us know now of your interest now for next year. We’ll be happy to hold reservation until then. In the meantime, download your digital walking tours and plan for your Sea Ranch vacation.
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