Don't Let These Photos Fool You!

So you're cruising around Pinterest, ignoring everything in life that you actually should be doing and you come across this amazing photo of a beautiful, exotic place and you pin that sucker right to your "Future Vacations" board. A few months go by, you get a plane ticket, pack your bags, head off to said location, and can't find anything remotely like your pinned photo. The locals look at your like you're crazy when you ask for directions, and as you walk away dejected they snicker at your foolishness. That place in your photo...does not exist.

The internet creates all sorts of new issues for this time and age. You cannot take anything you see, or read, at face value. At least a few minutes of research needs to go into everything to verify if it has the least bit of truth. Now mix Photoshop and the internet and there's a real mess. So I urge everyone out there, take two and a half minutes, Google what you're looking at, and see if it's real. I promise, two minutes is adequate.

To save you a few of those minutes, here are some common viral photos that are FAKE:

This is probably the most popular photo I've seen - and who wouldn't want to stay in a castle on a precariously balanced tower of rock? However, the photo is two places merged together and claims to be Dublin, Ireland. The castle is Schloss Lichtenstein in Germany and the island is Khao Phing Kan (nicknamed James Bond Island) in Thailand.

This one actually isn't too bad...this is known as the Ngyen Khag Taktsang Monastery in Bhutan. Not only is that the totally wrong place (this is Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in Wulingyuan Scenic Area in China) but the carvings about mid way down aren't there. It's just a plain pillar of rock, amazing in and of itself.

 Purple trees in Scotland? Neither purple, nor Scotland. This photo is actually of Shotover River in New Zealand and the trees are just photoshopped purple.

The moon shaped part of this photo is real - the volcanic crater of Molokini in Hawaii. The star island however has been digitally added. 

If this was real I would definitely sign up to see it. This place claims to be the Forgotten Temple of Lysistrata in Greece. But it's just a combination of the Pantheon in Rome and the Benagil Cave in Portugal.

The tree in the center of this photo is real - in that it was man-made and sits in the middle of Disney World's Animal Kingdom. Recognize the Tree of Life? That's it, photoshopped into the middle of some vegetation claiming to be Africa. I have personally seen this on Pinterest with a caption stating it was in Africa. No. And again. No.

So there you go! See how easy it is for people to make up places? Don't be fooled, do your research!