Road Trip by Randomizer: Running Encounter Rankings

This is the running index for Road Trip by Randomizer, a virtual travel series where I use a random U.S. county generator to pick a county or county-equivalent, then wander through it using Google Street View.

This page is not a ranking of which places are “best,” most beautiful, or most important. It is a ranking of encounters: which places grabbed me most through Street View, which scenes lingered, and which virtual roads made me want to keep looking.

A lower score does not mean a place is dull. It may only mean I did not stumble onto its best road yet. The map has a way of keeping secrets.

Scores are subjective and intentionally approximate. Ties are allowed.

How I’m thinking about the scores

The Encounter Score is not meant to be scientific. It is a quick measure of how strongly the virtual visit pulled me in: the beauty of the roads, the strangeness of the scenes, the feeling of place, the surprise factor, and whether the county made me want to keep clicking forward.

The Rank is just the current order produced by those scores. As the series grows, the list may shift. A county that felt modest after three stops might feel more distinctive after thirty. A scene that seemed minor at first might become one of the images I remember most.

That is part of the fun. The ranking is not a verdict. It is a field notebook with sortable columns.

What the list is teaching me

Even after only a few stops, the series is already showing a useful pattern: different places are interesting in different ways.

Some stops are immediately cinematic. Some are quiet and only become memorable after a longer look. Some may not offer obvious spectacle, but still reveal a roadside detail, a strange composition, or a feeling of place that lingers.

That is why I’m ranking the encounter, not the county. The score is less about judging a place and more about recording what happened when I looked.