A blogging photographer from Birmingham will fly to New York next week to spend a month with 3,000 virtual travel companions.

Karen Strunks, from Moseley, will deliver up-to-the-minute stories, live feeds, images and interviews of her trip, which begins on October 8.

Unusually, her Big Apple Unpeeled travel blog, will invite her 3,000 online followers to become virtual companions.

She is asking them to direct her on the trip via social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook.

Karen said it would be a trip with a difference.

“The Internet is bringing us into an exciting new arena,” she said. “It allows people to connect and observe remotely and collectively across the miles. Despite travelling solo, my friends and followers online will be virtually walking right beside me.

“This project will allow them to experience the sights and sounds and interact with my journey.

“At the core of the Big Apple Unpeeled is the desire to offer a collaborative travel journal, which provides a close vision of New York City to anyone, anywhere in the world who has online access.

“It will also expand the use of social media and will use the latest online applications, taking blogging to a new level. I will also be trying to go off the beaten path to cover lesser-known, but fascinating areas of the city.”

Karen is also the brain behind the 4am Project, in which photographers from across the world have been asked to take photos as dawn breaks.

“I was struck by how empty the streets were in Britain’s second city,” she said. “Everywhere that’s usually so packed with people was deserted and I just wanted to capture it.

“After that, I started going out more and more and posting the pictures online. People responding by starting to send me notes of places they would like to see at 4am. And I went out and took pictures of them."

Karen will be hosting a special 4am Project in New York's Times Square on October 17.

She added: "Times Square will be pumping with energy and will promise some stunning images to early morning photographers who want to capture the exhilarating activity in a 24-hour city”.

Big Apple Unpeeled
4am Project