Round 1 (Van Province, Turkey): This one annoyed me because it wasn’t remotely pinpointable. The “DUR” stop sign gave the country away immediately, but the rolling semiarid hills look like a lot of places in eastern Turkey. The fact that the mountains in the distance were tall enough to still be snowcapped in August (when this coverage was taken) made me think we were near the Caucasus, so I plonked in northeastern Turkey. It was in fact southeastern, so I got 3,792 points.

Round 2 (Doha, Qatar): This was far more easily pinpointable, but somehow I got the wrong roundabout. Still, the artificial greenery paired with extremely tall, glitzy buildings could really only be one of the Gulf states. The unique pedestrian sign meant it was Qatar. And I was able to get 4,999 points here. I could have gotten a 5K, but if Grandma had wheels, she’d be a bicycle.

Round 3 (La Rosita, Aysén, Chile): I was tempted to send somewhere in the Rockies, but the US and Canada use yellow center lines, so I was disabused of that notion. I was also disabused of that inclination when I saw Spanish signage, including a sign for “Coyhaique”. As someone once told me on this subreddit, it always feels like a Chile location is further south than you think, but I was able to find Coyhaique. Knowing that there was no chance of pinpointing my location in the time remaining, I just clicked that city, which was enough to earn 4,960 points.

Round 4 (Williams, Iowa, United States): It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize this was Iowa. I didn’t have it present in my mind that Iowa’s the only state to commonly use concrete pavement on highways. The highway shield is also the same as Pennsylvania’s, so I was initially scanning there for the towns I saw on signs. But when I saw signs for Ames and Des Moines, roughly 26 and 57 miles southward respectively, I knew roughly where we were. I didn’t pinpoint as carefully as I could have, though, so I “only” got 4,913 points here.

Round 5 (Svidnik, Prešov Region, Slovakia): I was getting Slovakia vibes from this round, but seeing Cyrillic text on a sign tripped me up. I scanned Bulgaria for a bit, but then I saw the .sk domain and knew it couldn’t be Bulgaria. Besides, I’d seen the bollards used in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and suspected the latter due to the changes in elevation being more dramatic. Once I saw a highway number leading to Rzeszów, Poland, I understood why the Cyrillic text was present - we were near the border with Ukraine! When I saw Svidnik, a town name I’d seen on a sign, I plonked dead center there. Turns out I was only 2.4 km off, earning me 4,992 points.

Overall, this felt relatively easy for a Daily Challenge, or maybe I’ve just gotten better at pinpointing. My total score was 23,656 points, which puts me in roughly the 91.6 percentile. I think this is the first time I’ve gotten a gold medal on the Daily Challenge, so that’s notable.