Google Street View Trekker: Where Would You Trek?

Google recently updated users of Google Earth (one billion monthly!) and — as reported by CNET — invited “Trekkers” to take it’s Google Street View off-road to places as yet unmapped.

From Google, a bit more about this technology:

The Trekker, our latest imagery-gathering apparatus, is a wearable backpack system that allows us to venture to locations only accessible by foot. The ability to take Street View to remote, hard-to-navigate places, such as the Grand Canyon, is a major opportunity to make the beauty and history of locations like these accessible to a global audience.

and

To continue making Google Maps as comprehensive and accurate as possible, we’re eager to take the Trekker still more places only accessible by foot. We look forward to sharing future collections with you that showcase more unique places around the world – from forest trails to the steps of ancient castles, and beyond.

Google is inviting applicants to take to the trails, peaks, forests and beyond with Trekker, with an online form that’s ready to accept your application. Their requirements:

If you represent an organization such as a tourism board, non-profit, government agency, university or research group that would like to take photos with the Trekker for future inclusion on Google Maps, please fill out this form. Tell us more about your proposed locations and upcoming trips, and we’ll get back to you if/when there’s an opportunity for us to partner with you on a Trekker collection.

Obviously, applicants need to be physically fit too, since the Trekker unit weighs 35 pounds.

All this has me thinking about where I’d take Trekker if I had the strength, time and resources. To help you consider some of the possibilities take a look at their breathtaking images of the Grand Canyon excursion and be sure to read the “behind the scenes” notes. I’d love to strap the thing on Kirk Whitney’s back for his tour of all of the California Missions! If it were me, I think I’d take the Trekker backpack to Yosemite National Park and let it climb Half Dome and feel the mists of the waterfalls.

Your turn: Where would you go with the Google Trekker backpack?