I was just reading a really cool Q&A with Peter White, the host of the BBC World Service’s “Blind Man Roams the Globe,” a broadcast in which White gives listeners a taste of what it’s like to “sightsee” when you can’t see.

In The Independent article, White describes the marble at the Taj Mahal as “incredible to the touch” and “a wonderful smooth sensation,” but indicates that the spirituality of the place was more difficult to grasp when it couldn’t be heard — at least not in the voices of tourists who were discussing the latest TV shows (as was the case when he visited).

On the other hand, a soccer match in Istanbul was a feast for the ears:

What was much more frightening for me, in an enjoyable sense, was I went to Istanbul and went to watch a Galatasaray play football. It was like going back in time in England by about 25 years: walking over discarded burger boxes and plastic cups, which is exactly how I remember going to football matches in my youth. I was crunching along on broken boxes and cups, and then climbing up the steps and discovering that we were absolutely shoulder to shoulder on the terraces.

A lot of people would find that rather intimidating but actually, for me, the more vivid that kind of experience is the more I am likely to enjoy it.

Seems like sightseeing without seeing is sort of like reading — your imagination becomes your sight. And what’s more vivid than your imagination? Think of all the crazy visuals you could conceive of in your own mind about your travels — just by closing your eyes.

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Also, check out the Science Channel’s new travel show “An Idiot Abroad”!  Here’s a funny clip.