What3words – really worth knowing! tortoises.sprouts.reinforce

While sitting in our local the Crown a couple of days ago and chatting to a coastguard rescue friend, we discovered what3words. One of us being a complete luddite technophobe (won’t tell you which one) nearly fell off his stool with the witchcraftery that is this new app. If you find yourself lost somewhere and don’t have co-ordinates info – you can use your 3 words to locate yourself and so you can be found, for example.

So, what it is it? Well, here goes – in their own words:

"Map pins aren’t accurate. Searching for the right entrance wastes time. Duplicate street names are confusing – there are 271 First Streets in California. Many places don’t have addresses – the start of a hiking trail, pop-ups and even homes. 3 word addresses are unique, more precise than postcodes and available in over 35 languages. To prevent mistakes, similar 3 word addresses are placed as far apart as possible. what3words is a really simple way to talk about location. We have assigned each 3m square in the world a unique 3 word address that will never change. For example ///filled.count.soap marks the exact entrance to what3words’ London headquarters. 3 word addresses are easy to say and share, and are as accurate as GPS coordinates. 51.520847, -0.19552100 ←→ /// filled.count.soap Our vision is to become a global standard for communicating location. People use what3words to find their tents at festivals, navigate to B&Bs, and to direct emergency services to the right place."

Needless to say, we have had hours of fun. Our guest lounge is twinkled.scrub.polices, the front door is elevated.entrusted.earlobes and the kitchen is kitchen tortoises.sprouts.reinforce. These all link to the google maps page too.

Get the app here!

The things you learn in a pub.