29 Virtual Tours and Vacation Ideas

With the constantly-evolving world of virtual tours and interactive online tourism, who says you have to leave your home to go on vacation? Tech-savvy companies in the hospitality industry are making it simple for you to travel, no matter your budget.

Between Google Earth and Google Maps (with Street View), the Googleplex has certainly done its part to enable virtual tours and online tourism; many of the innovations in this slideshow are Google-based. Other sassy start-ups, however, promise to go one step further and deliver interactive glimpses into top nightclubs and even ambient street noise.

Will virtual vacations replace the real-life kind in this dismal economy? Have we missed a key online tourism venue? Scroll down to the Reactions section to weigh in.