For people who still can’t decide how or where to spend their New Year’s Eve, a solution has emerged: travel across the globe and experience festivities in the world’s most exotic locations as they happen - and all from the comfort of your living room.

Computing Which?, the consumer magazine, has compiled a list of the 80 best webcams out of the thousands around the world. The magazine team scoured the web for the webcams that give internet users the best views of real-time activities in some of the world’s most-visited locations.

The tour begins in Portsmouth harbour, with a webcam that shows images of ferries and commercial ships setting sail. The tour then takes internet users to Normandy and then Paris, where they are treated to a bird’s-eye view of l’Hôtel de Ville on the Rue de Rivoli.

People are then only a few clicks away from the Swiss Alps, and the Pyramids. They can then see Kuwait City, Dubai, Bombay, Tokyo, Las Vegas and Santiago.

For nature lovers, webcams capture wildlife on a South African game reserve and crocodiles in Australia, while others provide vistas of Mount Kilimanjaro and Antarctica. For those who want to see some urban action, the famous Times Square webcam appears on the list, as does a webcam fixed in a busy Chinese factory.

The magazine says that the list will enable an internet user to become a virtual Phileas Fogg, the intrepid hero of Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne.

Yet, although in our technological age people are able to replace the various transport methods adopted by Fogg, such as rail, ship and elephant, by a simple mouse-click, their virtual tour of the globe could well lack a thirst-quenching finale at the Reform Club in Pall Mall.

By mouse at midnight

The Alps
www.swisspanorama.com

Russia
EarthCam Moscow
http://www.earth-cam.com/russia/moscow

Italy
Live views of and from Mount Etna
http://tinyurl.com/2y3skb

Tanzania
Kilimanjaro Webcam - Africa’s tallest mountain peak
www.kilicam.com

South Africa
Video from leading game reserve
http://tinyurl.com/39bkj3

Egypt
Pyramids
www.pyramidcam.com

Syria
Damascus - life in the capital
http://tinyurl.com/233w41

China
Factory cam - Live images from a Chinese factory
http://tinyurl.com/2qt4hj

Antarctica
British Antarctic Survey Webcams - real-time images from the Antarctic
http://tinyurl.com/2gpaby

Brazil
Santos cam - Views from large port in Sao Paulo
www.exibir.com/camevid/

Source: Computing Which?

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