Flight simulators have always been a little underwhelming for me. It's always interesting to see them take technical leaps forward, to see how "real" they can make a city or a famous airport look, but as for me, I've never really cared that much about the fidelity exhibited in modeling ground support equipment at a particular airport. Faithful, digital depictions of urban areas will always be more exciting to me when I'm on the ground, admiring the effort of putting stickers for fake electric companies on utility poles - buzzing a lovingly rendered Eiffel Tower with a commercial jet covered in raytraced reflections isn't going to do much for me.

All this is to say that I'm in love with the mundane and the games that let you zoom way in on the stuff that isn't exciting enough to be depicted elsewhere or documented extensively by hobbyists. It's fortunate for me, then, that we live in an era where so many things are documented no matter how many hobbyists are paying attention, all because technology has afforded us the opportunity to do so. Despite its 100+ gigabyte install size, most of MFS2020 is being pulled from 2.5 petabytes of data in cloud storage, a figure that doesn't even represent the full scope of street and geographical data in Microsoft & Google's collections. Not even a tenth of it, actually, based on estimates from five years ago.

So sure, you could fly through a semi-hand-crafted representation of Manhattan (it's neat! it genuinely is!), but I imagine that there are other simulations that could provide stiff competition, and in that light MFS2020 is probably less impressive. If your curiosity allows it, though, I recommend going somewhere else. Fly over Bao Bolong, around Futuna, visit Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, follow the Ohio River from the town of Ripley heading either direction. Pick a capital city of a country that you don't know much about and fly as far as you can tolerate. If you're feeling adventurous, go to Google Maps, right-click a random spot, and click the coordinates to paste them into the game.

We are so connected that you can now look at a map of the individual aisles of a Best Buy in North Carolina from the base camp at Mount Everest, so why not use it to visit places that never would've received your attention? The world is full of fascinating places that will never be on a list of travel destinations. Find something interesting, get lost in a Wikipedia rabbit hole, fall in love with the immensity of our planet.

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Detchibe's wonderful GeoGuessr review, the inspiration for what you're reading now