I don’t know how long Globe Genie has been around for, but my friend Sly sent it to me this week, and I was immediately intrigued. The concept of the site is simple: click the “teleport” button, and via the magic of Google Maps and Street View, you’ll be taken to a random place on the globe. You’ll be able to look around 360 degrees in classic Street View fashion, and should you be inclined, you can also explore the area with a few clicks. The whole thing is kind of amazing, if only for giving you an appreciation of the geographic diversity of this great wide world. You’ll often wind up on a desolate highway, but the real fun is arriving at some ultra remote location or in the center of a quaint town (usually in France or Italy). Of course, like me, you’ll also find yourself in The Bronx or on some McMansion-filled suburb of Phoenix, which is not nearly as fascinating but no less amusing.
Since I’m crazy, I also wanted to see how long it would take before I landed in a spot that I’d actually been to. It took about three days of casual clicking before I landed on the rather mundane destination of the Garden State Parkway in NJ. Anticlimactic.
Anyway, the good news about the site is that if you land somewhere particularly evocative or beautiful or amusing, you can nab a permalink and send it to your friends. After the jump, a few destinations that I enjoyed (with a few thrown in from Sly too).
Here are my favorites, with more to come surely…
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=52.010027,5.161734,104.94,-1.54
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=51.507906,-0.317684,219.96,0.4
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=40.783903,-96.194355,123.47,11.63
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=42.001968,9.048369,53.4,10.3
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=1.338338,103.960288,40.76,2.17
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=40.186496,-3.685768,3.61,5
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=43.018947,-1.053253,311.91,-1.1
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=49.260506,4.027695,230.04,6.94
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=63.480747,23.007109,349.39,8.71
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=43.39916,2.720338,209.71,11.81
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=40.435933,8.527567,103.61,12.43
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=-62.595542,-59.90453,314.91,7.92
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=49.415062,-108.449927,0,5
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=43.297787,2.681416,92.83,2.44
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=41.827969,-121.387353,299.94,5
What are some of your favorite locations you’ve found? Share them in the comments!
We can add this to the list:
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=53.598889,-6.79419,303.5,22.07
Well I’m going to be useless at work for the rest of the day! Thanks 🙂
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=53.598889,-6.79419,303.5,22.07
Damn…this is fun.
It keeps taking me to Texas!!!
I like the countryside
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=53.598889,-6.79419,303.5,22.07
junkyard?
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=53.598889,-6.79419,303.5,22.07
FYI – if you want to post a permalink, you can’t copy what’s in the address bar. You have to click “permalink” and then a little window pops up with the link. Otherwise you’re just copying and pasting the same link I posted above!
Damn, thats annoying
Awww, I had all day to f*ck off and I am barely getting this, so close to the EOB? Dang. I’ll save it for Monday. 🙂
Spain and freakishy narrow street:
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=40.948107,-4.121383,270,5
hb
Me likey.
So what are the parameters for having been to a place before? I am assuming you have to have seen whats shown in the photo rather than just having been in that city? This is important for a rules junkie and travel junkie like me.
I think you have to recognize the spot.
This is awesome!!! I appreciate you enabling me to waste more time, which is why I will never land on a spot that I have been to because I am busy at home wasting time!!
Oooh… a Spanish winery!
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=37.598377,-5.980738,48.01,7.92
oh wait. According to Sly, these are olive trees. Fun, nevertheless.
And here’s a very cool Swiss tunnel. Reminds me of a video game.
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=47.431823,8.571457,250.47,1.9
I’m about 75% sure I’ve been through that tunnel.
I want to go to there…
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=66.559052,16.350984,252.84,-4
Beautiful, remote lake (?) in Sweden.
Their yard is very tidy.
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=53.77195,-1.363533,0,5
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=31.312641,-115.483658,288.8,6
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=51.183394,-112.777263,285.06,-8.69
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=50.833872,-112.661341,233.12,3.27
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=41.350528,-81.443716,172.79,-1.5
Very much NOT exciting except it is my 5th click and I’ve at least been to good ol’ Solon, Ohio. w00t.
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=-30.776369,27.190124,250.93,14.67
Rt 58 – South Africa. Spin around, it is beautiful.
Okay. I’m trying to pace myself.. but to behold a French McDonald’s with what appears to be a kick-ass kiddie play-land… must share! i can’t be so selfish as to keep it to myself.
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=46.214902,5.214731,319.22,5.79
Is that a penguin (or two) on right?!
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=-62.595505,-59.903569,0,5
Yes! Search around a bit. I landed in the same spot and came here to post this:
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=-62.595841,-59.90254,128.01,7.05
So cool!
Is there some kind of requirement that it only shows beautiful places? It took me to Sweden, Ireland, France, Maine and other lovely spots. The worst things I saw were a Rite Aid in Fredericksburg, Virginia and a working class neighborhood in northern California – and still both places looked clean and had lots and lots of trees.
Definitely not! Click to only search South America.. I saw some very very run down neighborhoods in various spots in Brazil!
Maybe it’s that the world is more beautiful than we think… ;o)
I don’t know what this is.
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=36.730076,-2.673316,345.35,14.05
Looks like shielded vegetable fields to me.
I present to you Landfill, Brazil: http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=-22.927835,-43.515634,305,5
After clicking only about 20 times, it took me to the road that leads to my parents’ house. Weiiiiird.
Holy fuck. Down the road in Landfill, Brazil is a horse. THEY BLURRED OUT ITS FACE TO PROTECT ITS PRIVACY: http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=-22.927835,-43.515634,45,5
Here’s a better link to the horse, is it just me or does it appear that it has 3 legs in the front and 1 in the back, maybe that’s why he needs his identity protected? http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=-22.927835,-43.515634,0,5
My favorite thus far are the ones on Half Moon Island – if you click on only Antartica that’s the only place it takes you.
Interestingly for me within about 5 tries I was not too far from my own home. I wish they had Germany available but apparently Europe is only United Kingdom, France, Italy, Czech Republic and Spain.
This July we took a spontaneous diversion off I-80 to find the renowned Lee’s Chicken in Lincoln, NE. A road was closed, forcing us to use residential streets in the detour. This street was just 2 blocks from our route. I hit this on just my second click. Scary.
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=40.79977,-96.75096,359.9,25.51
overlooking a sicilian town with what appears to be old city walls behind… gorgeous
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=36.932321,14.733645,196.97,11.24
Apparently Africa comprises of only South Africa. Interesting though.
thanks for ruining whatever productivity I DID have left today at work…..this is the best invention in the world
This one has a rainbow!
http://web.mit.edu/~jmcmicha/www/globegenie/index.html?llyp=39.687035,8.543116,354.84,7.53
Thank you for helping my horrible case of insomnia! I have been at this for a half hour and its quite possibly the best waste of time EVER!!!!
Wow….freaky! I was taken to a town in New Hampshire, a road in Sweden, a road in Ontario, and then my 4th click was to a street in my little hometown of 5,000 in the middle of nowhere in Missouri!!!! Craziness!!!