Christina Balzotti, a Connecticut College student interning at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, wore a Google Trekker backpack as she walked along Wollaston Beach, taking pictures for Google Maps.

With temperatures reaching the mid-60s a couple of times in the past week, the collective yearning of Bostonians for the beach must have increased tenfold. But even without a streak of freakishly warm days, there may be a way to escape the winter funk and remember summer through digital means.

Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, a nonprofit harbor advocacy organization, teamed up with Google to create panoramic and interactive images of Greater Bostons beaches. With the help of Googles Trekker, a large multi-lens camera strapped to the back of an intern, Save the Harbor/Save the Bay logged more than 19 miles of beach walking during this past summer.

Advertisement

Its the closest you can be without actually being there. Its terrific, its extremely interactive, and its not complicated to use, said Bruce Berman, a spokesman for Save the Harbor/Save the Bay.

The 360-degree imagery allows users to explore nine local beaches. During the summer, this technology could be helpful to a user in deciding where to take a family trip and what beach would be the best fit. By clicking on the cursor, users are able to move through the beach and along the water. Long walks on the beach dont always require walking.

Get The Weekender in your inbox:

The Globe's top picks for what to see and do each weekend, in Boston and beyond.

Beaches include Carson Beach, Revere Beach, and Winthrop Beach, all of which are right around Boston.

Google has been very supportive of Save the Harbor/Save the Bay. They have a program to make their tools available to nonprofits, and they made it available to us and many others. It really does help to tell the story of an interesting or beautiful place, said Berman.

According to Berman, almost 2million people live near a beach in Massachusetts. He believes that over the last 30 years, the local beaches have improved a lot and have become a source of pride for the community. He hopes that this will increase awareness of the beaches, as well as increase the publics appetite for traveling to them.

Advertisement

At Save the Harbor foundation, our mission is to restore and protect Boston Harbor and the beaches and the islands and to share them with the public. This project and this technology does just that, said Berman. Though the volunteers at the nonprofit were the ones in the field collecting footage, because of the sophisticated nature of the images and the necessity for processing, they were not able to see them until recently.

We were so glad that when we saw it, it looked as pretty as it does, said Berman.

View original post here:

Local beaches are now just a click away - The Boston Globe