Our theme for the month of October is “haunt.”
One of my favorite games on the internet is GeoGeussr, a geography-guessing game where users drop into locations on Google Street View and have to guess where in the world they are. Despite not having been to the majority of the world, I have a lot of fun using the variety of text-based, landscape-based, and road-based clues to determine where I am.
Ever since I learned about this game in high school, and by proxy, learned about Google Street View capabilities, I’ve found myself dropping into locations, whether familiar or otherwise, and just going through the streets, sliding through different years to see how a certain location has evolved over time.
In some ways, it’s mindless fun, like finding out the origin of a viral urbanist tweet is less than two miles away from my apartment, or finding out your hometown has constructed an incredible community center that now makes you envy your nieces.
Some have used Street View as a means to visit dead relatives, who if only for a second, were captured by the street view cars passing their homes as they garden or bring in groceries from their car. For those not lucky enough to have been candidly captured by the Street View car, settling to see a light on in a home that no longer exists will suffice. There they stay forever, locked in time, always there for the grieving to visit from afar.
But other times, it’s tragic, if not haunting, to see how quickly a cute family home falls victim to entropy and to see small businesses disappear. In just a few clicks, you can see how quickly it takes for things to completely fall apart.
Sometimes, it’s hard to imagine anything thriving used to sit on the empty patch of land you’re staring at on Google Maps, even though one click will take you right back to the time of its existence.
Even if you haven’t been blessed enough to find yourself on Google Maps, the streets of your childhoods are preserved, frozen in amber (but only for you Zillennials and Gen-Zers). The Back Yard Burgers that turned into a Comeback Shack over a decade ago is still there if you just look hard enough. And once you see it again, you can almost smell it too.
Almost…
In a way, Google created time travel when it released Street View. There is an entire world you can explore in the year of your choosing. For the entire day, you can travel the streets and even visit some of the local attractions.
If you long for the glory days of 2009, you can go on a car guided tour of all your favorite spots, before it was ruined by the scapegoat of your choosing.
But instead of connecting with the sounds and smells or interacting with the environment, you’re only present in a snapshot in time, step by step.
Through Street View, you are the ghost.

Mitchell Barbee graduated from Calvin University with a B.A. in writing in 2021. Originally from Boone, North Carolina, he is currently residing in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He enjoys hanging out with the few friends who stayed, wearing grey hoodies, and hoping that he doesn’t get sucked into the nightly wormhole of watching a baseball game.
I’ve heard of this game! It is like time travel in a way. Very cool read.