A Very Large GPS Drift

Since I’ve got a newer, more modern phone, I don’t get that much GPS drift any more. Sometimes, with all location-based games and apps, GPS signals can get blocked. After all, GPS is tied to a massive system of satellites which communicate and triangulate together. Most of the time, this GPS drift is very short and always snaps back after a few moments.

However, one day, I went on a really nice trip, according to my GPS.

The GPS was slow at first. It was just doing what it normally does, wandering to and from the Pokestop by my house. But then my little character got up and started wandering north, towards a new gym I’d added about 2 weeks ago. The gym was very new, and so were the spawns around it. As I approached the nearby town square though, my avatar changed its mind. In a nice, clean 180 degree turn, my avatar walked itself back home, racing past the new gym again.

I thought to myself that would be it. But for some reason, my character started walking again, as soon as it reached where I live. This time though, my avatar didn’t stop.

At first, my character walked south, towards a nearby long and straight road that runs perpendicular to the sea. Once it had reached the mostly featureless fields though, the avatar took a slight detour, turning west, walking along a dual carriage way. It then started to just follow that road, turn north-ish a bit and start walking through the city’s tourist area, merrily avoiding both my dad’s place and my dad’s partner’s place.

After about 5 minutes of power-walking, my character slowed down, but found itself in the middle of the tourist area. Of course, none of this was in range of the Pokestops. It wandered around in circles for a little bit, as if confused, before stopping and starting at random.

Sadly, the journey was cut short.

My little GPS trip didn’t last forever. I’m definitely not sure where exactly my character had gone, but it had traveled towards the large church nearby the local shopping mall. There weren’t that many Pokestops in range for me to spin, but I had ‘traveled’ over quite a good distance. The sea was within walking distance, but my character decided to stop next to a Pokestop that was also next to a large, round, blue circle. Most likely a swimming pool from the nearby hotels.

Before I could investigate further though, I got a GPS Signal Not Found error. I wasn’t at all surprised by this. After all, I was at least a good kilometer or two away from my house.

Or did it?

All of a sudden though, I found that I had been teleported again. This time though, I knew exactly where I was. The nearby mosaics and ruins on the edge of the city, where the lighthouse is. There were a few new Pokestops for me to spin, and one of them was, amusingly, research for spinning Pokestops.

After that though, it did something I would have never expected. My character walked straight into the ocean. Well, the Mediterranean Sea. And it kept on going. Unfortunately, the sea has no Pokemon in it. at all. Not a single spawn, even at the coast.

Yet again though, my journey was cut short, again, by a GPS Signal Not Found error. That’s probably for the best though. I don’t like playing games with the sea.

Overall though, a weird yet fun experience. And I didn’t even need to get out of my chair.