GeoGuessr

Have you ever played GeoGuessr? About a year ago a friend mentioned it, and I got hooked on it that weekend. I was recently reminded of it and thought I'd talk about it here.

You can play it by clicking here: GeoGuessr

Each game has five turns/rounds. You are shown the street view of somewhere in the world, and you can wander around like you would on Google Streetview--with the arrows and zoom tools provided on the screen. In doing so you can look for clues as to where you've "landed." When you're ready to make a guess, use the Google map on the right. Drag it around and zoom in (use your mouse wheel) so you can make your guess as specific as you like. Click the spot that you choose as your guess, and then click the "Make Guess" button.

Sometimes you are able to get extremely close to the actual location because there are signs giving away specifics like the city name. But I count myself successful if I'm able to guess the correct country or state! It's harder than it sounds.

Here's how I did on the location I was given at the top of this post. I moved around until I found some signs with city names that were somewhat familiar, so when I zoomed in on England I was able to find what I was looking for and get a very close guess. I was kind of lucky that I vaguely recognized the style of the city names.

Playing is fascinating because you get to see a lot of random places in the world. The scenes are sometimes mundane, which makes it all the more interesting to get a glimpse of what people far away see in their day-to-day lives. Playing the games makes me want to travel, and I have learned a lot by exploring.

Then they put you somewhere you had no idea Google "street"view went. Like in the ocean! What the heck?

It's funny what you start noticing in order to determine the location. Usually the first thing I check is whether the cars are driving on the right or left side (usually both :P). I try to read the signs, but not all of them are very informative, especially when they're in a language I don't recognize. Sometimes I end up making a random guess because I'm in a really dull location and don't feel like inspecting it further.

TIP: You'll find you're often placed in the western side of Australia. If you're ever in a dry, boonie-ish area outside of the US, that's usually a good guess. Brazil also comes up a lot. Some countries don't have very extensive streetview coverage yet, so they don't show up as often in the game. Since Australia and Brazil are both large countries and have a lot of coverage, they are good guesses if you're feeling stumped.

You get a score based on how close your guess is with the actual location, and after five turns they give your total and a summary of your guesses versus the correct ones. The scoring is just for fun and comparisons. Sometimes I do terribly and will guess a location that is basically on the other side of the world from the actual place. Mostly I play for the virtual exploring.

Let me know how you like it if you play! (No, I'm not making any money from them, I just like to share the fun!)