Hello there fellow explorers! I’m looking for help, many of you here on this forum go way back and have been doing this for a while now, (I go back as far as the OPR days aka the wild west) and I feel like I’ve nominated every mural, LFL, park sign, historical plaque and trail marker in my city and surrounding areas.
I’m looking for motivation as we enter summer here in the Northern Hemisphere and the weather begins to get nicer.
What are some of the POI’s you are nominating that aren’t the TOP 5 or TOP 10 normal POI’s that we see all the time? I’m hoping to stretch my game and get more creative.
Has anyone seen/found anything lately that’s super rare or really creative? I don’t know why, but I’m expecting a snarky response from @26thDoctor.
I’d love it if you could share it here! It would help get me going to nominate some really fun POI’s. I think the reviewers also would enjoy seeing something different.
My local city has sandstone caves with loads of things to nominate, but i can’t be bothered to do it tbh. I generally think theres at least 100 things to nominate there
I’ve been hunting for martial arts dojos in my area and I got a judo dojo that’s been around since 1954 accepted recently. I’ve found a few to check out in the coming weeks, which I think would be really great assets! Perhaps not the most unusual POIs, no one has added them (in my area, at least).
Awwww… I’m only being annoying so we don’t all end up discussing the never ending tedium of criteria, postboxes and Niantic’s communication
This isn’t that weird but I did take an hour long diversion on my way home the other day just because I’ve all wanted to add a pirate to the map. It’s bolted down and chained to the wall before anyone wants to Waysplain
It’s amazing to me how many boring business parks are now putting in nice outdoor areas for employees to have something to do at lunch or break time. Since work from home is so popular now, office complexes are realizing that just being a large building doesn’t cut it anymore. Companies want to rent office space from a place that has a walking trail, bocce court, softball field, horseshoe pits, etc. They’re building large eating areas outside so if people need to social distance again, it will be easy to do so.
Not on my submitting menu? Dug outs.
The best advice to remember is that pouring over the satellite view of the map only shows so much. There’s a lot you miss if you don’t put boots (or tires) on the ground. I just found a volleyball net at a big corporate complex last weekend. I knew they had a basketball court and one or two other things. But as I was driving to hack a portal, I saw a net out of the corner of my eye. It’s impossible to see on satellite. Actually, this worked for me twice. There’s a dog park that I’d never really looked at too closely that’s been in the games for a long time. Turns out, there’s a large dog enclosure and a small dog enclosure. So I think both of those can be a POI. Again, that was a matter of walking TO the dog park and really looking at it.
A new escape room just opened up in my neck of the woods in Charlotte, I’m going to nominate it on lunch today! Thanks for the idea! That cell just happens to open also!
You are right about that! I was in an area that I don’t play in that often last weekend. I was looking at the map for anything and didn’t see anything useful. But I walked around a little bit and found 3 new nominations. Boots and tires are the best way.
I’ll say this about the overhead maps and the google car. it’s really help me narrow down a few area I want to further look at.
Many of the escape rooms are chains ran by corporations. Having a family member who has worked at several different ones now, I would personally probably reject them as Generic Business.
But they aren’t generic? Each location has a variety of different rooms that are also different from the other locations. And they need to come up with new rooms and cycle out old ones regularly.
To me these are great places for social gatherings and exploration.
I didn’t realize that so many of the places I nominate are off the wall. Since martial arts studios, arcades, VR/racing simulators, and escape rooms have already made the list, and trail markers are apparently not off-the-wall (though very few I’ve submitted have been on walls), maybe I should also throw in:
Gyms & Fitness Studios & Exercise Rooms
Movie Theaters
Pools
Music Schools
Dance Schools
Art Studios
Fire Pits & Fireplaces
Sexist Social Clubs
Stages
Campgrounds
Craft Studios
Ice Cream Parlors
Axe Throwing … Venues?
None of these feel particularly off the wall to me though
Have you checked sites like Atlas Obscura for ideas? I don’t know if hmdb.org still gets updated, but maybe some new items there after the initial Ingress import?
You said you did most LFLs in the area, but did you compare against the website littlefreelibrary.org ? (not all are on there, but I did notice some that are listed in my area that are not yet wayspots)
Oh, and https://ridewithgps.com/ was something I discovered while researching existing wayspots. People made routes for events to show off new murals, for instance. I’ve seen similar sites for more niche subjects like street art/graffiti (maybe not all wayspot worthy, but the point is about niche resource lists).
Hi @BlameJamal
You could talk to your local artists.
Maybe they plan something and you could be the first who know and press submit
Begin at the end! Recherche at first, the object at last - exciting, isn’t it
The very first thing I thought of when I read your question was to ask the Doctor about architecture. By changing your field of view or frame of reference you can find a whole other level of stuff to explore.
