Localism is Active Rain's sister website. To know more about it, you can check the following post: What is Localism?
Localism has lots of images of cities in the US and Canada that can be accessed from anywhere and any time to get a feel for the town. It's like taking a virtual tour of a city. This can be very helpful with those of you who have clients who are looking to relocate to a new town. In this, my first post (I joined Active Rain on November 21, 2008), I would like to explain how to access and view pictures on Localism. It is very easy!
To View Pictures
1. Go to www.localism.com .
You should then see a welcome screen similar to the following screen:
2. At the top right of your screen, you see a blue rectangle where there is a box:
Enter the name of the city and state you want to explore.
For our example, I will type Red Lodge, MT but you can type any city and state (for US) or city and province (for Canada).
3. Click on the city's name you are interested in which appears in the area in blue.
You should see the page with the name of the chosen city appear and it will display a box containing one of the pictures previously uploaded on Localism.com (by any member of AR). Please note that If you scroll down on the same page, you should also see (right under the picture box) a box with a Google map of the region where your city is located.
4. Click on the + sign (on the top right hand corner of the first picture) to access all the uploaded pictures.
5. Use the right and left arrows < > (near the top of the page) to scroll through the album and click on each picture separately to go through one picture at a time and read the description at the bottom of each picture.
Note that under each picture (right below the description) is the link (person's name underlined in blue) to the AR profile of the member who uploaded the picture.
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words!
Now that you know how to view pictures on Localism, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and visit a new town or a city you would like to revisit in the US or Canada virtually from the comfort of your couch or chair! You may want to check your own city to see what pictures are available. If you do, chances are that you may also catch the Localism bug like me and decide to add some of the best pictures of your city to share with the rest of the world!
If you have never heard or never been to Red Lodge, go to Localism and take a virtual tour of Red Lodge, Montana! You can click on the following link if you want to get there faster and skip the first 3 steps described above: http://localism.com/MT/red_lodge . I hope the images (along with the brief descriptions) that I have displayed on Localism will give you a feel for Red Lodge and why I love where I live.
Please note that anyone can view the pictures on Localism. However, only members of AR can upload pictures (your AR Username and Password will be required). In my next post, I will explain how to upload pictures to Localism.
Thank you for visiting. I look forward to your comments.
Posted by 
;)
;)
Gerry - Nicely done. I have often felt privileged to get a chance to vicariously "visit" other parts of the country by way of my friends' posts, both here on AR and on Localism.