Google maps satellite view geoguessr

Lately, I've enjoyed playing the following game with myself:

  1. Visit a random spot on Earth's land surface at a random angle on Google Maps satellite view, with the labels turned off
  2. Take my best guess at the location
  3. Zoom out
  4. Return to step 2

I find it pretty fun! You discover a ton of weird features on this planet (there are so many peculiar things out there!), you can improve quickly after playing a bit, and it's great for calibrating your intuitions about how much of Earth is made of jungle, desert, urban areas, etc.

How to play

First, download UBlock Origin (Chrome, Firefox). Then go to My Filters (Firefox link) on the settings page and add the following to your configuration file:

!restaurants, hotels, etc
www.google.com##.e2moi
!yellow person in the SE corner
www.google.com##.WzvKIe
!blanks out the minimap under "layers" that can otherwise give clues
www.google.com##.SBV6Td
!blanks out the imagery copyright data and provider of the imagery at the bottom, which can reveal the country of origin 
www.google.com##.H4v9Kb
!removes the little target icon in the bottom left that recenters to the user's current location
www.google.com##.sVuEFc
!the search bar
www.google.com##.id-omnibox-container.JLm1tf-bEDTcc-GWbSKc
!self-explanatory
www.google.com###compass
!left hand sidebar for wide screens: this isn't spoiler-y, just some visual clutter
!unfortunately adding this block doesn't seem to let the image extend to the edge of the screen
!and just leaves a grey bar on the side instead of a white one
!up to you whether you want to comment this line out
www.google.com##.tTVLSc.XltNde
!removing the settings panel and gmail account icon from the top right
www.google.com##[class^="gb_"]

(UBlock origin is toggleable per-site, so you can just turn these blocks off by hitting the extension's power button when you want to go back to regular Google Maps usage without affecting anything else.)


Once you've done that, click this button to generate some random links! When you visit them, you should squint your eyes and uncheck the "Labels" checkbox in the bottom left without looking at what they say (unfortunately I don't think adblockers can handle this automatically, though with some work a TamperMonkey script might be able to). Then you'll be good to go! You want to fullscreen the window first though, so you don't get info about the coordinates from the URL.