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Occasionally, I fall down a Google Maps rabbit hole. It always starts innocently enough—checking directions, maybe zooming in on a landmark—and somehow ends with me wandering across deserts, oceans, and random parking lots on the other side of the world.

Sometimes I’m up in the clouds using satellite view, other times I’m dropped right there on the ground using Google Maps’ Street View, peering around corners like a tourist. And just when I think I’ve seen it all, Google Maps throws me something so strange I can’t look away. I’ve seen a number of odd discoveries that are still hiding in plain sight.

Uffington White Horse, England

A horse that’s been running for more than a thousand years

Cut into the rolling chalk hills of Oxfordshire, the Uffington White Horse is a prehistoric hill figure dating to the late Bronze Age or early Iron Age, making it roughly 3,000 years old. It measures about 110 meters from tail to ear and was made by carving deep trenches into the hillside and packing them with crushed white chalk, which is why the shape reads so clearly from above against the green landscape.

Archaeologists still debate why someone made it. Suggested ideas include a territorial or tribal emblem, a ritual or religious symbol, or an image tied to seasonal or celestial markers, but no single explanation has convincing proof. What is certain is that generations of people have kept the figure visible through a practice called scouring, and today the National Trust and local volunteers continue that maintenance. The Horse still pops up on drone and satellite images as a bright, enigmatic mark on the landscape, proof that some prehistoric gestures survive into the age of mapping and pixels.

Nagoro “Scarecrow” Village, Japan

The quietest crowd in Japan

Hidden deep in Japan’s Iya Valley is Nagoro, a place where people are overwhelmingly outnumbered by their replacements. In 2003, Tsukimi Ayano returned to her native village after retiring and was surprised to find it had become so lifeless. She began creating life-sized dolls to represent the neighbors she’d lost, including farmers, people taking smoke breaks, figures waiting at bus stops, and people tending gardens.

She has since made more than 400 dolls, including replacements, with about 350 currently displayed in the village. One of the most touching spots is the abandoned school, where Ayano has filled the desks with dolls of children. Seen on Google Maps’ historical street view function, many of Ayano’s dolls are visible and appear hauntingly lifelike.

Cerne Abbas Giant, England

The world’s oldest open-air scandal

A few hours south of Uffington sits another chalk figure, and this one doesn’t exactly blend in. Etched across a Dorset hillside, the Cerne Abbas Giant stands about 55 meters tall, showing off a bald, naked man with a very noticeable erection and a hefty club in hand. You can spot it clearly on Google Maps, and even from a distance, it’s one of those things that makes you pause and think, someone actually carved that into a hill. Today, the National Trust looks after it, and it still holds the title of Britain’s largest chalk hill figure.

For a long time, nobody really knew where the giant came from. Some thought it dated back to prehistoric times, but modern testing told a different story. Using a method called optically stimulated luminescence, researchers discovered it couldn’t have been created before the year 700. That means it probably appeared sometime between 700 and 1100 AD. One theory even suggests the figure might represent an Anglo-Saxon god named Heil or Helith.

The Silent People (Hiljainen kansa), Finland

They’re not moving, but you might

Along Highway 5, just outside Suomussalmi in the Finnish countryside, there’s a field that’ll stop you mid-scroll on Street View. Out of nowhere, you’ll see an eerie crowd of several hundred life-sized figures frozen in place, like a rural version of a zombie apocalypse. The installation, created by artist Reijo Kela in 1988 and moved to its current spot in 1994, consists of scarecrow-like forms with peat heads, straw hair, and simple wooden frames, dressed in bright, mismatched clothes. Locals even change their outfits twice a year, so the whole scene shifts with the seasons.

Many believe the figures were meant to honor the people who died nearby during the brutal Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union in 1939 and 1940.

Gulliver Park (Parc Gulliver), Valencia, Spain

A monument you’re supposed to climb

In Valencia’s Turia Gardens, there’s a massive figure of Gulliver stretched out on the ground, about seventy meters long and nine meters high. From above, it looks like some strange, oversized body frozen mid-scene, but zoom in on Google Maps, and you’ll realize it’s actually one of Spain’s most adored playgrounds. The design captures the moment when Gulliver was tied down by the tiny Lilliputians, and here, everyone who visits gets to play the part of one.

The giant’s body is a maze of stairs, slides, ramps, and ropes. His clothes and hair have been cleverly turned into different play areas, so kids can scramble up his sleeve, slide down his arm, or disappear into the folds of his coat.

Airplane Home, Oregon, USA

One man’s retirement plan took flight

If you zoom in on a wooded hillside in Oregon’s wine country, you might think you’ve stumbled upon a plane crash. But look closer, and you’ll see the aircraft is perfectly intact, sitting right where someone meant it to be. Hidden among the trees on a quiet slope is a full-sized Boeing 727, bought by Bruce Campbell for around $100,000. Back in 1999, this former engineer and pilot had the entire jet shipped all the way from Greece to Oregon—and turned it into his home.

Campbell says he has no plans to ever live in a normal house again, so this retired jetliner has become a permanent resident of the forest, blending aviation with a touch of eccentric genius.

Island of the Dolls (Isla de las Muñecas), Mexico

Where every tree has eyes

If you drop into Street View and wander through the canals of Xochimilco, just south of Mexico City, you’ll eventually come across something straight out of a horror movie. All around you, hundreds of dolls hang from trees—some missing heads, others missing limbs, all of them staring blankly into the air.

The story goes that Don Julian Santana Barrera, who once lived on the island, began hanging the dolls to calm the spirit of a young girl who had drowned nearby. Over time, he claimed to feel her presence and started collecting more dolls to keep her spirit at peace.

He didn’t care what shape they were in, whether they were broken, dirty, or decapitated; it didn’t matter. He hung every single one, and together they’ve become one of the most unsettling, yet oddly fascinating, tourist attractions in the world.

Estancia La Guitarra, Córdoba, Argentina

A love story written in trees

In Argentina’s Córdoba province, there’s a massive guitar-shaped forest carved into the pampas, stretching almost a kilometer across. You can spot it easily on satellite view, a green instrument laid out in perfect detail with over 7,000 cypress and blue eucalyptus trees. There’s even a star-shaped sound hole in the middle.

The idea came from farmer Pedro Martín Ureta’s late wife, Graciela, who once saw a farm from the air and dreamed of creating something beautiful like that on their own land. After she passed away, Ureta and his children spent years planting and shaping this living tribute to her. Now, their guitar of trees stands as a quiet, breathtaking symbol of love that’s visible from space.

The Lion Point, England

A cat too big to ignore

Just outside Whipsnade village in Bedfordshire, a huge white lion sprawls across the chalky slope of Dunstable Downs. It’s so large you can spot it clearly from satellite view on Google Maps, even on your Windows PC, standing out like a bold signature against the green landscape. The Zoological Society of London created the lion near Whipsnade Zoo—the biggest in the UK—to help warn pilots not to fly too low and disturb the animals.

For nearly a century, the Whipsnade White Lion has watched over the downs, becoming a proud local symbol. From above, its bright white outline pops against the hillside, making it one of England’s most recognizable and enduring landmarks.

You don’t need to physically find weird things when you have Google Maps

The strangest thing about these places isn’t how bizarre they look, but the fact that they’re still here, still cared for, still loved by someone. Google Maps has become an accidental gallery for all of it, quietly proving that somewhere out there—in a field, a forest, or on a hillside—someone’s imagination left a mark strong enough to outlive them.

I didn’t expect to lose an hour staring out of strangers’ windows online, but here we are. One moment I was at my desk, drowning in the usual chaos of tabs, and the next I was gazing at a misty mountain framed by a Swiss balcony. A single click later, I found myself in São Paulo, where rain streaked the glass and cars splashed down narrow streets. I clicked again, and I was peeking out of a high-rise in New York, watching the skyline glow as the sun slipped behind the towers.

This, in a nutshell, is WindowSwap, a website that lets you “open a new window somewhere in the world.” Trust me, it’s every bit as captivating as I found Live TV Wall, which lets you stream live channels from around the globe.

WindowSwap is a pandemic project that refused to stay indoors

The world’s most peaceful rabbit hole

WindowSwap really lives up to its name: it invites you to peer through strangers’ windows around the globe from your own screen. The site was launched in mid-2020 by Singapore-based couple Sonali Ranjit and Vaishnav Balasubramaniam as a kind of pandemic antidote to cabin fever. Their idea was straightforward: if we couldn’t fly across oceans, maybe we could at least borrow each other’s views. It stood apart from the usual apps and websites people turned to for relief during those long lockdown months.

What began as a modest lockdown side project soon grew into a global community. According to a One Show case note, as of 2021, the site had accumulated more than 12,000 submissions from over 110 countries, over 5 million unique visitors, and 20+ million total views.

Opening the window

A simple interface with surprising depth

Getting started with WindowSwap is refreshingly simple. When you visit the website, you land on a page with one centered button that reads, “Open a new window somewhere in the world.” When you click it, the screen fades into a real video: a window frame fills the view, with plants on the sill, curtains slightly parted, maybe a quiet street or garden beyond. You hear ambient sounds (whether it be birds, passing cars, distant chatter, etc.), and for about ten minutes, you’re somewhere else entirely.

A small label in the top-right corner of the screen shows the location as well as the time the video was captured, often within the last few months. In the upper-left corner, you’ll see whose window you’re peering through (in the case of the first image in the gallery above, "Zubby’s Window"), adding a personal touch to each view. In the lower-right corner, you’ll find a handful of intuitive controls: a loop button to replay your current window endlessly, a fullscreen button to immerse yourself completely, and a volume control to adjust or mute the ambient audio. These let you customize your window-watching experience without cluttering the interface.

It’s important to note that these are pre-recorded videos, not live streams. The window views are randomly selected, so you might occasionally see a window you’ve already viewed. You can keep clicking "Open a window somewhere in the world" as much as you like to flip through streams randomly. Each click transports you to a new corner of the globe—from bustling Tokyo streets to tranquil Norwegian fjords—making it endlessly easy to lose yourself in the hypnotic rhythm of window-hopping across continents.

Everything about WindowSwap feels thoughtfully designed

You can unlock even more windows if you really fall in love with it

WindowSwap doesn’t do much, but everything it does feels intentional. The project’s founders chose not to make the clips live feeds. Every video is submitted by someone, reviewed manually for privacy and quality, and then curated into the platform’s growing library. That review process means you’ll never accidentally stumble into something invasive or inappropriate. You are sure to enjoy just the quiet rhythms of daily life across the globe.

You can also send in your own window. All that’s required is for you to sign up, then upload a horizontal ten-minute video that includes the window frame, recorded in good light with clear natural sound. You submit it with your name and location, and after moderation, it becomes part of the growing archive.

If you end up hooked (and you probably will), there’s an “All-Access” membership that costs $5 a month or $50 a year. This premium tier unlocks several enhanced features: a back button to revisit the previous window you just viewed, the ability to filter windows by type (such as snowy windows), search functionality to find windows by specific locations, unlimited bookmarks to save your favorite views, and access to every window ever uploaded to the platform.

Try WindowSwap for yourself

The next time you feel that familiar restlessness creeping in and want to dodge the endless scroll without relying on another “anti-scrolling” app, try opening WindowSwap instead. Click a window, pour yourself a coffee, and let the world roll in. Maybe you’ll find yourself in Tokyo watching the neon glow. Maybe you’ll end up on a farmhouse porch in the middle of nowhere. Or maybe you’ll just watch someone’s cat hogging the spotlight. And if you’re feeling generous, consider submitting your own view. You never know whose day might be brightened by it.