I frickin LOVE Google "Street View"

[A HERETIC I AM]

If you have never played with it, I'm telling ya.....it's awesome. If you have played with it, please share your favorite spots, or coolest places you have "driven" around.

I've driven around the Ferrari Factory in Marenello and the Maserati Factory in Modena

I've driven by our old house in Mill Creek Towne, outside of DC and where I lived in Alice Springs, Australia.

Around the Faroe Islands and through the countryside of the South Island of New Zealand

The walk along the Viet Nam Memorial in DC and the Pyramids of Giza

For all of the links above, you can scroll around - a panorama of you like, by putting your mouse pointer at any spot, clicking and holding and moving the mouse. You can scroll out and see the area from above, and scroll way out and see the satellite shots. You can move along the ground, following the track the camera car made by clicking ahead of you on the street or path.

There are plenty of places that aren't photographed, but the amount of ground they HAVE covered is frankly, astounding.

[Ohiogal]

1. I love to look at other countries

You can "walk" down the street in Vladivostok, Russia, or Berlin, Germany ....etc.

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. Yup!

I've walked down a side street, off the Champs-Élysées, and looked at all the cafe tables on the sidewalk.

It's really cool, isn't it?

[Gidney N Cloyd]

3. I retraced my walk between home and school back in the early 60s.

Either the terrain has since flattened out & compressed or it was never 10 miles uphill in both directions. I'm at a loss to explain it.

[A HERETIC I AM]

5. LOL

And it's all a lot smaller now, right?

[Demovictory9]

24. I did the same. The scary woods I would walk through sometimes... are so dinky!

As a kid, walking through "the woods" was terrifying. lol

[RazBerryBeret]

4. kinda crazy

I looked up my house, saw a black car parked in the drive. the date on the images is 2012, realized it's my dad's car probably parked here when I took him to one of his many doctor appointments. He died two years ago.

[A HERETIC I AM]

6. Weird, huh?

I'd really like to find out when the Google car is gonna drive by again, and be standing out in my front yard wearing one of these;

[area51]

16. LOL. n/t

[IcyPeas]

7. Faroe Islands...

There is a woman who does Periscopes from there. It's amazing to see. It's pretty desolate. She'll periscope while she is driving around. Its absolutely beautiful scenery.

[A HERETIC I AM]

8. Yes.

On my bucket list.

[BadGimp]

9. Have you ever tried Google Earth?

It's mind-blowing imo
https://www.google.com/earth/versions/

[A HERETIC I AM]

10. Yes!

They also did Google Moon!

https://www.google.com/moon/

Some pretty clever folks out there in Menlo Park.

[fountainofyouth]

11. Try GeoGuessr

It's a game that asks you to guess your location based on the Street View you get dropped on. https://geoguessr.com/

[A HERETIC I AM]

12. Cool!

Obviously parts of Botswana look exactly like the Northern Territory of Australia!

[progressoid]

17. I was telling someone about this a couple weeks ago.

But I couldn't remember the name. Thanks for the link!

[Bob Loblaw]

13. I'm on there.

I saw the Google car and waved as it went by. I pulled up the commercial location I was visiting a few weeks later and there I was waving at the camera from the front seat of my car. My face was pixelated, but it was me.

[Roadside Attraction]

14. A few months ago . . .

I used Google Maps to look up places where I served in Vietnam. Shook my head what I found:
-- golf course on what was my battalion's base camp
-- four-lane highway where there once was a single lane dirt road bordered by dense jungle
-- cultivated fields where there once was impenetrable swamp

[LeftInTX]

15. You can go back in time too

Of course, image quality is limited to the 2000s.

Hubby and I were just arguing over a 7/11 near our house. They're tearing down a 7/11 that was just built. (A new 7/11 is going up)

I told my hubby, "They just built that and now they're tearing it down and building it back up". He disagreed.


But Google proved I was right.

Originally it was a Citgo, Google showed it torn down in March 2016. It was up in Dec 2016. Now it's torn down again! (Sorry no Google map for the newest tear down...LOL)

[demmiblue]

18. There is an Easter egg in this one:

https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-0.192862!3d51.492132!2m2!1f291.8!2f71.14!4f75!2m5!1e1!2m3!1sc9UMhWP_MWm9U0L48xEjYw!2e0!7e5&fid=5

[A HERETIC I AM]

20. OK...Ya got me!

I looked all over and don't see anything unusual.

The image is from 2012 however, and when I went to that same spot the image I'm seeing is from March of this year. The business under the "District" section of the railway station is a natural foods store now, not a Frozen Yogurt shop.


Soooooo...hint?

[demmiblue]

21. Click the bottom of the Police Box. n/t

[A HERETIC I AM]

22. BWAAAAHAHAHAHAH!!

Perfect!

Excellent!


LMAO! Very clever!

[demmiblue]

23. Heh...

This should have been my hint!

[LeftInTX]

25. OMG!!!!!

[912gdm]

30. I always wondered, what do the squiggly lines mean?

no parking?

and the reference on the police box was awesome

[fleur-de-lisa]

19. I use it to live vicariously through my daughter.

She lives in Germany and is constantly traveling all around Europe. I love using google street view to follow along with her.

She was in Morocco a few weeks ago for a long weekend. Now she is in Switzerland with her boyfriend, visiting his family for Christmas. Next week she is visiting her best friend at the friend's parents home in northern Italy. What a life she leads!

[Renew Deal]

26. It is very helpful if you're going to somewhere you've never been

It can provide certainty about what you will find. Google maps is wrong every once in a while. Street view can help you identify some of those mistakes.

[A HERETIC I AM]

27. Yes. Absolutely.

[Eliot Rosewater]

28. Never thought to use it this way, thanks. I usually look suspiciously at

topics meant to distract us from what is going on, but that is not what this is and I like this idea, will use it more now.


How do you use it from start, do you google an address or do you go to google street view page?

One of my faves
is Lahaina , Maui

how do I get to front street, if I dont know it is named Front street?

[A HERETIC I AM]

31. Here's how I use it most often

To see the area of a location referenced in something I'm reading.

Let's say someone in the Lounge talks about a restaurant in ....oh.....Seattle, and you want to see what the neighborhood looks like from the street. If they give you the name, google the place, and find the street address.

Then I just go to a regular google search bar and type it in. Whenever you do that, you ALWAYS get a small square of Google Maps with the location pinpointed. Click on the map, let it open on your screen and when it loads, a small square on the bottom left will appear that changes the view from a map to satellite.

Click on that square and when that loads, at the bottom right you will see a little yellow man figure. This is the street view icon. Zoom (or use your scroll wheel on your mouse) in close to the pinpointed address (which should still be there) and move your mouse over to the yellow man, click and hold on him and move him toward the center of the map. Every road that the Google camera car has driven on will appear as a blue line. Hover your mouse (which now has the yellow dude sort of dangling under it) over the spot on the street you want to see and let go of the mouse button.

The view will change to what the camera car saw when it last drove though.

You can also just go to a Google search bar, type in "Maps" and you will get the link to their site. From there you can move all over the world.

This is the link to that I have on my Firefox Bookmarks toolbar, right at the top of my screen;

https://www.google.com/maps

[Eliot Rosewater]

35. have been using maps and street view but did not know about the yellow man, very helpful, thanks

[A HERETIC I AM]

36. Apologies, I don't think I answered your 2nd question;

how do I get to front street, if I dont know it is named Front street?

Not sure exactly what you mean, but lets say you know the general area of a city that the street should be located. Zoom in and switch back to the map view. The street names are easier to see. Then try typing in the name of the street on the search bar embedded at the top left. If it isn't there, there should be a small arrow or chevron shaped icon pointing toward the middle of the screen. Click on that and you'll get the search bar.

Does that help?

[Eliot Rosewater]

37. Well it is easier now if I START at google maps, I was starting at google and typing in an

address but I didnt always have that, so it is easier now, this way.

Thanks

[A HERETIC I AM]

38. No worries. Enjoy!

[louis-t]

29. Try this: On Google maps, go to satellite view.

Back all the way out until you see the entire earth in front of you. A drop down will appear on the left side of your screen with some of the planets and a few moons. You can select one of them and zoom in to view them up close.

[A HERETIC I AM]

33. Didn't notice that before. Cool! Thanks.

I like how it shows the Earth in relation to the sun (how far away you are from nightfall, for instance) in real time as well.

[KCDebbie]

32. Several years ago, I took a "Street View" stroll down Lombard Street in San Francisco!

Last edited Fri Dec 28, 2018, 08:51 PM - Edit history (1)

I also meandered around a beach-side neighborhood in Los Angeles near the interesction of Lincoln Blvd and Euclid St and browsed the satellite views of my old Army barracks, Emery Kaserne in Wurzburg, Germany...

The world is a big place and Google maps/street view can take you to see it!

[A HERETIC I AM]

34. Exactly!

I've driven around Lake Como, in Italy, and in the hills above Parma.

I saw this YouTube video of a trucker in Norway driving up and over a pass in the winter. A sign showed the name of a village he was passing through, so I searched it, found the road and took the same drive he did!!

It is an utterly fascinating tool.

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

39. I was just in Sumatra! Dont know why, but thats one place Ive been enamored of ever since

5th grade when I would daydream in class and look at the map and try to imagine what the very remotest places would be like. But actually I never really knew much about it until I googled it the other day on google maps and I guess I shouldnt have been surprised that there were roads and towns and such.... not totally jungle. The street view I found myself in was not a road, but a walking trail along a beach and blue ocean and green jungle clad mountains....underneath a brilliant blue sky and puffy white clouds. I want to go there!

[A HERETIC I AM]

40. I was fortunate that my father had a job the required him to take posts overseas.

He was CIA and we got to Greece in the 60's and Australia in the 70's. We explored all of the east coast and the wanderlust followed me into adulthood! I drive a truck for a living and have been able to visit all of the lower 48, 3 Canadian Provinces and 2 Hawaiian islands.

As an adult, I've been back to Australia and to England, but never back to the Continent and never to SE Asia or Japan or Africa or the Middle East.

I so want to see more of the world. If for no other reason, this is why I find Google Maps and Street View so magical. Like you say, you can walk down a path in a place you dream of being.