I love maps, and this is just about as cool as maps get: tracking global air traffic. Pretty crazy to see how many of us are going different places. Only a week until I’m a dot on that map again!

Other than being awesome adventurers, one of the biggest things my parents did to feed my wanderlust as a kid was to keep around a giant National Geographic Atlas. I would spend hours just flipping through that thing realizing just how much world there is to explore.

National Geographic is still putting out their atlas, but in the days of Google Earth, I’m sure it doesn’t sell as well as it once did. So now they’ve put it online as well. It will remind you of Google Maps, but it loads very quickly and marks neighborhoods and landmarks without lots of other clutter. Well worth checking out.

Though really, I prefer the old book to this system. If I ever have kids, you can bet your boots that they’ll have a National Geographic Atlas.

h/t Adventure Blog via Intelligent Travel

Mashable is taking nominations for the best travel website for the Open Web Awards. As someone who thinks a good deal about travel and the internet, I felt obligated to participate in the process. But when it came time to submit my nomination I had to pause for a little bit.

Sure, just the other day I was pitching Kayak as the best site for finding flights, but I don’t think that necessarily makes it the best travel website.

After some long thought I nominated maps.google.com. Whenever I think about going anywhere – from lunch on a Tuesday to Morocco – the first site I open is Google Maps. It’s the stuff my travel dreams are made of. It helps me get the lay of the land long before I arrive, and lets me plot and scheme on routes like no other map could. So there you go, for the moment that’s what I consider the best travel website.