To ask if you ever go for a little wander on Google Maps?

[CheapSausagesAndSpam]

And if you do, where do you go?

I like looking around London where I used to live and finding lovely streets to admire.

Also, love looking around various parts of America. I found this the other week

www.google.com/maps/@34.0433622,-118.2458055,3a,75y,218.23h,77.34t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sEmKbr4InS-8TZfsg4duAxQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

Skid Row!

I wandered about there for a while and it's so awful...looks like some really poor country.

When house hunting from overseas, it was incredibly useful. I would plot routes I might use. More than once using it ruled out what would have been a wasted trip to view because the house was on a fast road with a scary drive turn, or next to something I didn't want to live by.

Also, like DontOpen, I look up places in novels. The Hollywood Hills feature a lot in Michael Connelly books for instance.

OldRaver I was caught by the Google car on the school run a few years back. It always made me smile looking at the images 😀

I’ve been on a few strolls around Alton towers on it haha

I also like to find people who are mind tripping over, it looks like they are flying about

I DO use them to look into gardens over walls I can't see over when I'm in the bus....

One year, three out of the four of us in our immediate family were snapped and on Google Earth, in various locations.

I love a good wander round googlemaps! I just choose places, usually in the UK, I've never been to and have a walk round. Lincoln is one of my favourites.

I love Google Maps. A few years ago, dh called me over to the window to point out the Google camera car driving past. Now if we look up our house on Google Maps, you can clearly see the pair of us gawping out of the window!

I do this all the time. I mainly do overseas - cities in South America, or Italy are favourites. I had a look at Everest Base Camp before I went, which was really cool, and I looked at the US - Mexico border wall in Texas which just made me very sad.

Are you blurred out Watto1 or does that have to be requested?

No, not blurred out but you would only know it is us if you know us and our house.

My last post doesn't make much sense does it??!? What I was trying to say is that we aren't really recognisable unless you already know that we live in that particular house.

Do you need 'street view' or whatever that little man is? All i can see are tops of buildings

Understood you perfectly Watto

I've noticed that some countries don't let you 'wander' in Google maps.
Switzerland is one. I used to live there, but it's sad that I can't 'walk' the streets.

Wow SnowFairyDust never imaged North Korea would have granted permission for them to stick through there. will definitely be searching through there later

I pick the absolute middle of nowhere in the US and zoom in on a random little town. Can't imagine life in some of these places. One had a rundown, old fashioned Main Street, looked like an empty movie set.

I'm on Google Maps too - waiting at a bus stop!

I love doing this. I often take a wander along a highway in the USA and stop to look at community and school district websites.

If you like that sort of thing (which I do, too) have a look at the Geogessr app.

I used to share an office with someone who went on google map 'trips': he would sit at his desk, alter the temperature in our office to something appropriate, put on some 'local' music, buy some 'local' food and go on his trip...

He was quite unique!

I often do it if I’m going to be driving somewhere new.

am I missing something re Skid Row? Was curious so typed Skid row los angeles and it's a fairly normal looking down town street?

wizzywig it depends. Sometimes, as you zoom in, it automatically flicks into 3-d. But normally you need streetview, pick up the little yellow man, and as you move him, blue lines appear along all the routes that have been photographed, and you can dump him on one of them. If you only get blue spots, then the google street camera hasn't been along there, and all you have is people's uploaded photos.

I ended up doing the whole of a 'hidden London' tour of Soho on Google maps - got the book out, was figuring out where it started, then followed the instructions ... half an hour later I’d done the whole tour. Not quite the real thing, but in some ways better than walking into lampposts cos I’m nose down in a book.