Google Earth

[Elle]

When I have a random spare moment at a good computer, one of my favorite things to do is pick a place I've never been around the globe and descend into a random spot to pretend I'm traveling the roads. Or I click on those little spots where Google users have posted a panoramic photo. It is astonishing to see how people live and how different it is around the globe. Today I was rolling through these neighborhoods in South Africa - a few miles from one another you have beautiful houses with swimming pools, up the mountainside and surrounded by walls that mask what's really there, and endless rows of little shacks with tiny yards, with fencing made from used tires. There are people roaming the streets in nearly every frame, in every direction.

[Mike]

Then play GeoGuessr.

https://geoguessr.com/

It sets you down on a random road somewhere in the world. Your job is to wander the roads until you feel you can make a guess as to where you are. Sometimes it's easy. Most times it's not. Lisa and I once spent twenty minutes traveling down some backroads, unmarked highway until we finally spotted a "Kangaroo X-ing" sign.

[Elle]

That is indeed quite fun but I'm too impatient to play. Go down the road slooooooowly until you see a road sign or vehicle, and combine with local plants/soil/terrain to make a guess. Works very well but I want to get right to the seeing how people live in different places - it's fun to get a sampling of urban, mid-range town, rural, etc. for a given place. I could probably just stare at the thing all day. It would be awesome if they would include things below like links to video local guides have taken, not just the panoramic photos. So you could get a little narrated walking tour, maybe, or a list of important local sites to check out while you're tooling about. I don't really understand vacations that involve going to a spot and then sitting in it for x days - what I really want to do is get out in a vehicle and roam around an area until you get a good taste of the scenery and start figuring out your way around. My parents (and grandparents) used to go on this type of long, caravan-style vacation for weeks at a time with me back before they would haul people into court for taking their kids out of school that long. It would be awesome to just, you know, drive around as a passenger in the google car!

[poorpete]

Love GeoGuesser, spent many a lazy night on that page. But always got stuck when deserts were involved, Australia could be just as easy be South Africa or Mexico and then I lose a million points.

When I was unemployed, one of my goals was to traverse the globe in the Google Earth Flight Simulator. Oooh, just the thought makes me want to try again. I got from Katmandu to somewhere around Iran before life got in the way.

My favorite trip was to go from JFK to the airport near our house, based only on the landscape and compass.

https://support.google.com/earth/answer/148089?hl=en

[Mike]

I once watched Yancey get trapped on GeoGuessr on some hotel/resort compound in South America. He was literally in a place with no signage and no roads connected to the outside world. We bumped around in there for at least a half-hour before finally giving up on it.

[Kyle]

I scored 18,500!

Is it fair to google stuff when you see it on signs?

[Mike]

[Mike]

Honestly, I don't think there's a wrong way to do it. I'm not competing with anyone but myself.

[Kyle]

I don't think it's cheating. I found a two signs together that said, "Belleville City Limits" and "Route 252 Next exit" I used google to find that there was a Bellevill GA and it had a route 252. I found exactly where route 252 entered the city and made my guess. I was only off by 98 meters.

[Mike]

I approve.

[poorpete]

My preferred way us to not travel, just guess based on the original 360 view, but they don't post rules on purpose. You make up your own rules. Is there any other thing like that? Hopscotch maybe?

[Reika]

I've spent many hours with Google Earth as I write my XCOM 2 fanfic since it's set on Earth and I want to try give semi-accurate descriptions of the area I'm writing in.

Some of my readers were disappointed to know that I'm not some well traveled person who has visited some of the places I've written about.