Have you ever been somewhere great? There are places we go that are so breathtaking, we just have to share them with our friends, family and loved ones who aren’t there. And yes, let’s admit it, we’re not always just sharing. Sometimes we’re also showing off a little. Although some of us have more of a tendency to show off rather than share, as I’m sure a number of social media accounts can tell you, the truth is human nature is not so cut and dry. For most of us it’s a mix of both. A genuine desire to share, as well as a slight urge for a bit of friendly showing off.
Well, we’re here to help you share, show off, or both. The following is a list of places worth starting a video call online with your friends or family from. Some locations named here may be outdoors, and you might have known me to advise minimising the impact of the outdoors on any video call you might engage in, but these places are exceptional enough to make a little background noise acceptable, along with a few other video calling hiccups that we normally prefer to avoid at the cost of changing your location if need be.
I drafted you this list mainly based on places I’ve actually been so I can give you my personal guarantee that they’re worth video calling your friends and family from. So you can “share” your new experience via video conferencing software.
It may seem odd to you to include an entire town as a location worth a video call with your friends from, but Bruges is an exceptional town. Something of a fairy tale town, Bruges is the ideal location for a virtual meeting with your annoying sister-in-law when you go there on Holiday. That way you can stick your tongue out at her just a little bit.
The mediaeval architecture and cobblestoned streets will transport you back to the time of knights slaying dragons and swords being pulled from stones. If that’s not enough for you, crowning this glory is a mediaeval cathedral along with a number of picturesque castles, though some of those are more modern than others. A few of these castles have even been converted into hotels, which you can stay in if you’re feeling very fanciful.
With an abundance of car-free shopping streets built centuries ago, beautiful canals to traverse by boat, shops run by chocolatiers who craft their merchandise by hand, stitchery and embroidery shops by the boatload, and a traffic-free market square at the centre of the town, there is almost no place in Bruges that is not worth video calling your friends and family to show.
Any of you acquainted with my national origins might be accusing me of bias at this point. However, a quick internet search will reveal that making a video call from the Giza pyramids is far from an Egyptian idea. The first people to have that idea were actually tourists, not born and raised Caireans, Giza being part of Greater Cairo.
Although the Giza pyramids are famed as a trio, the source of this fame is the great pyramid of Khufu, which is the largest pyramid in the world, or at least the largest pyramid constructed in the ancient world.
Make a video call whilst dwarfing the great pyramid from a distance for visual effect, or go ahead and take the famous pose of kissing the sphinx on a video conference with your best friends back home. Showing off aside, it will make for a really fun video call. “Lift up the pyramid next! Act like you’re a giant and you’re going to step on it!”
Then of course there’s the video call that's the most fun of all video calls. Get on horseback and start your video chat software from on top of the horse, in the middle of the desert, with the pyramids in the background. If you’re not sure you have the skill to ride the horse and make a video call at one and the same time, ask the vendors you rented the horse from to hold the reins while you make the call. Better yet, make your video call from the back of a camel!
Those of you who don’t know about my national origins might know about my naturalisation. But again, I’m not being biased towards my other country. I’ve loved the CN Tower long before I became a Canadian citizen. In fact, I’ve loved it before ever seeing it, when I read a fact in the fact section of my favourite Disney comic back home. Pseudo-pun on facts intended.
The comic was issued in Arabic with translated stories of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and other Disney characters. And the fact I read named Canada’s National Tower as the tallest building in the world, period. This was before the UAE built Burj Dubai or Burj Khalifa, which shattered the CN tower’s height record.
I loved the CN Tower even more when I saw it, despite the fact that it was no longer the world’s tallest building by the time I got to climb it. The CN Tower is an excellent spot for a virtual meeting with your social acquaintances. A literal demonstration of you “living the high life” so to speak. On some days you would literally be video chatting with your family and friends from above the clouds. You could even show them. Bonus points if you do it from the revolving restaurant. To be completely honest, while I’ve climbed the CN tower at least 3 times, I’ve never eaten in the revolving restaurant. But I’ve looked inside it. Pretty snazzy. And the prices are surprisingly appropriate. There are far more expensive restaurants in the rest of the GTA, serving options that are considerably less fancy.
Literally carved into the mountain, Petra is what remains from a surprisingly symbiotic city built in ancient times, located in the territory of present-day Jordan. The architectural details of the carved mountainous dwellings, along with the level or artistic effort clearly exerted in the facades of the Treasury and theTemple/Monastery buildings/mountains, are a terrific place to make a video call with your friend from work to brag about how well your vacation is going.
The one bar to that might be the realisation that your cell reception literally has one bar (proper pun intended). I remember some pretty patchy reception in the area but then, I haven’t been there since I was 17 years old. Cell reception over there might be better now. But even if cell reception has not improved in Petra, video chatting over a patchy connection is well worth the trouble, given what you’re showing off in the background.
These are a few locations which I’m sure you’d be happy to “share” with your friends and family via video calling. Whether or not you use video chat at these places, make sure to enjoy yourself. Don’t get too busy taking pictures or video chatting with people to actually experience the place. Video conferencing is great, and these are all excellent places for a video call with family and friends. But ultimately, the video call can wait while you experience what you came for. Enjoy. And when you do decide to make a video call, pick your best option.
