One of my favorite games to play whenever I have some free time is GeoGuessr (or free alternatives, like Worldguessr and Openguessr). There’s something special in getting to know places that you will likely never visit in your life, and being able to guess where you are within 100 miles purely off intuition.
I guess it isn’t much of a surprise that someone who loves to travel also has a blast playing these games, but seriously – you should try it! The process of improving is more rewarding than you’d expect.
One thing that happens to me occasionally while playing, though, is I find a place so fantastically different from my expectations that I have to sit back and enjoy the place that I am looking at. Here are a few examples.
There are a lot of islands.
Isla Incahuasi, Salar De Uyuni
This is probably the most well-known of the places in this list, but I had to add it. Salar de Uyuni is the world’s largest salt flat in the world. It is a place to behold, even on Google Maps. At the center of the salt flat lies the closest thing to an island on land.
The island is not really an island, but a dormant volcano, and it was used as a stepping stone as travelers crossed the Salar. You can see that Isla Incahuasi is still (sort of) being used in this way – you can still reach the visitor’s center on Google Maps.
Socotra
It’s known as the alien island because it’s so freaking crazy. There are trees like the dragon’s blood tree and the less famous but equally weird Socotran cucumber tree.
The geography of Socotra is a little less weird, but still hard to get used to. There are large stretches of desert, populated with Socotra strange flora, but the mountains are far greener and wetter.
On an unrelated note, places like Socotra are why I love Google Earth so much. Socotra is difficult to visit due to the war in Yemen, but because of technology like Google Earth, we can almost imagine being there.
Unfortunately, you will never get Yemen in your GeoGuessr rounds, since Google Maps coverage is currently very limited, but if it ever happens, I will be delighted to get Socotra.
Okinawa
This is an island that I would probably miss in a no-move round. Okinawa is a strange island in many ways. For one, it’s subtropical, which makes Okinawa feel more like Taiwan or the Philippines with its lush greenery.
The other thing that really makes recognizing Okinawa a challenge is the fact that Okinawa is influenced very heavily by America because of the American military presence on the island. So although it is a Japanese island, you will find lots of English signage.
Sanikiluaq, Belcher Islands
So this place is really cold. A lot colder than Okinawa, that’s for sure. But the Belcher Islands are not actually that far north when compared to the rest of “polar Canada”, and it’s pretty far removed from the polar circle. For reference, the island lie at a latitude of 56 degrees, compared to Anchorage’s 61 and Grande Prairie, Alberta’s 55.
The thing that makes the Belcher islands look closer to Antarctica or Greenland than Copenhagen, of course, lies in the geography. The islands lie in the middle of the Hudson Bay, which is frozen during the winters. As a result, the water surrounding the island is frigid and leaves the Belcher islands cold throughout the year.
Providencia Island
Okay, I ended up writing about basically all islands. But they’re so interesting! Anyways, this final island I am writing about is Providencia island, which is owned by Colombia.
It was actually initially settled by English Puritan settlers, who brought African slaves to the island before being conquered by the Spanish. The island therefore has speakers of English, Spanish, and Creole.
What makes this island so interesting from a Google Maps perspective (which is admittedly not the most exciting perspective) is the multilingual signage (as discussed above), and the fact that unlike most Caribbean islands, there is relatively little tourist infrastructure on the island. It’s so small (15 square kilometers!) that not many tourists come.
One of the things that I really enjoy about surfing Google Maps is that you get to learn more about a place that you’ve never heard about. But honestly, Google Maps is nothing to a first person account – for an interesting overview of Providencia, check out the blog Mabul.