As quarantine drags on, I think it's fair to say that some people are starting to get tired of their monotonous daily routines.
Time to go take a stupid little fucking afternoon stroll
I love my neighborhood walks, but they've definitely become a bit repetitive. So when I saw people on TikTok using an app called Randonautica to spice up their strolls, I decided to look into it.
According to Wired, Randonautica uses a random number generator to give the users (otherwise known as "Randonauts") sets of local coordinates. Before they journey to these coordinates, they're encouraged to "set an intention" — aka, think of something they'd like to see.
A lot of people have reported strange coincidences while using the app. For example, these two friends on TikTok manifested the colors red and yellow, and ended up seeing a ton of it at their coordinates:
Along with weird coincidences, there have been reports of just plain creepy stuff. Like these people who were led to a person walking all by themselves in a field in the middle of the night:
And these people who ended up at an abandoned village in the middle of the woods that looked like it was straight out of The Blair Witch Project:
I love a good adventure (especially a potentially scary one), so I decided to take a couple hours out of my v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶o̶p̶e̶n̶ super busy schedule and try Randonauting. After downloading the app, I read through the list of pro tips and realized I should A) bring a friend, and B) go when it's light out.
I called up my friend Troy, who agreed to come with me. We made sure to go into our adventure with positive minds, fully charged phones, and masks. Remember y'all, we're still in the midst of a pandemic here.
The first intention we set was that we wanted to be inspired. The coordinates it gave us were to a pretty alleyway. We decided that even though it was scenic, we weren't THAT inspired. But as we were walking away, we noticed a piece of paper pinned to a tree.
The paper said "FOUND PIMSLEUR LANGUAGE GUIDE CD'S" and was signed by someone named Gilbert, who also left their phone number (I blacked it out so you guys wouldn't bother Gilbert). We took this as a sign from the universe that we should be spending our quarantine learning a new language. The probability of either of us following through on this is low, but it was inspiring nonetheless!
Our intention for the second location was that we wanted to see something that made us feel uncomfortable. We were led to a run-down house that had a rocking chair on the front porch...occupied by a large stuffed animal that had two other stuffed animals on its lap, and two straw hats on its head.
Needless to say, we felt a little uncomfortable.
After going to one more location that was entirely uneventful, we decided to call it a day.
Ultimately, I think Randonauting boils down to that famous quote, "People see what they want to see." If you go into an experience with the intention of seeing something that makes you feel sad, happy, weird, or scared...you will probably find what you're looking for!
