CamGuessr: The Free Geography Game Using Live Cameras from Around the World

CamGuessr is a free online geography game where you watch a live traffic camera feed and guess its location on a map. Unlike GeoGuessr, which uses static Google Street View photos, CamGuessr streams real-time video from 135,000+ cameras across 60+ countries — showing actual weather, traffic, and lighting conditions as clues. It is completely free with no subscription required.

How It Works

Every round of CamGuessr drops you into a live camera feed from somewhere in the world. Your job is to figure out where you are using only what the camera shows you — road markings, signage, vegetation, weather patterns, driving behavior, and infrastructure. There is no Street View, no panning, and no rewinding. You are watching the world as it happens right now.

Game Modes

CamGuessr offers three distinct modes, each testing a different aspect of your geographic knowledge. All modes draw from the same pool of 135,000+ live cameras and support region filtering.

Why Live Cameras Change Everything

Most geography games use pre-captured imagery. CamGuessr is fundamentally different because the footage is live — you are watching the actual world in real time, and every game is shaped by conditions that exist only in that moment.

Real-Time Weather

See actual rain, snow, fog, and sunshine — weather patterns reveal hemisphere, latitude, and season. A snowstorm narrows your options instantly.

Live Traffic Patterns

Rush hour traffic reveals time zones. Driving on the left narrows it to a handful of countries. Empty roads at certain hours tell you about population density.

Never the Same Twice

Cameras show conditions right now. Every game is unique because the world keeps moving. The same camera at 8 AM and 8 PM gives completely different clues.

Infrastructure Clues

Road surfaces, lane markings, sign styles, guardrail designs, and camera mounting all vary by country and region. These details become powerful clues.

Harder Than Street View

No 360-degree panning, no zooming, limited field of view. You must extract maximum information from minimal visual data — a more focused and intense challenge.

The live element also means CamGuessr has inherent unpredictability. Sometimes you get a camera pointed at a highway sign with the city name visible. Other times you get a foggy mountain pass with no signage at all. That variance is part of the challenge.

Camera Coverage by Region

CamGuessr draws from TrafficVision's global camera network — the world's largest live traffic camera directory. Not every camera is eligible for the game (YouTube embeds, panoramic cameras, and static JPEG refresh feeds are excluded), but the eligible pool still spans tens of thousands of feeds across every inhabited continent.

Region filtering lets you focus your game on a specific continent. Playing "Europe only" or "Asia only" forces you to distinguish between countries with similar road infrastructure — a much more granular challenge than simply identifying which continent you are on.

How Scoring Works

Classic and Streak modes use an exponential decay formula that rewards proximity: 5,000 x e^(-distance/2000). The curve is designed so that getting the right general area still earns meaningful points, while pinpoint accuracy is rewarded handsomely.

Here is what the formula produces at various distances:

In Streak mode, scoring below 1,000 points (approximately 3,200+ km off) ends your run. This means you can survive being in the wrong country as long as you are in the right part of the world, but guessing the wrong continent will almost always end your streak.

Tips for Reading Camera Clues

Becoming good at CamGuessr requires developing a systematic approach to extracting geographic information from a single fixed camera angle. Here are the categories of clues experienced players use.

Road Infrastructure

Road markings are one of the most reliable indicators. White dashed center lines with yellow edge lines strongly suggest North America. Pure white markings with no yellow indicate most European countries. Rumble strips, shoulder width, and lane count all vary by country and road classification. Guardrail styles, median barriers, and road surface quality narrow the region further.

Signage and Language

Any visible text is extremely valuable. Highway signs follow national standards — green signs in the US, blue in Europe, green with white in many Asian countries. Even partial text or font style can identify a language family. Route number shields are country-specific: Interstate shields, European E-road markers, and Japanese route markers are all distinctive.

Vegetation and Terrain

Dense pine forests suggest Scandinavia, the Pacific Northwest, or parts of Canada. Flat agricultural land with grid-pattern roads points to the US Midwest. Red earth indicates parts of Brazil, Australia, or sub-Saharan Africa. Desert scrubland narrows options to the American Southwest, Middle East, or parts of Australia.

Weather and Lighting

Snow on the ground in a flat landscape could be Scandinavia, the northern US, Canada, or Russia. The angle of sunlight helps determine hemisphere — shadows pointing south mean you are in the Northern Hemisphere. Heavy overcast skies are more common in the UK, Pacific Northwest, and northern Europe than in Mediterranean or desert regions.

Driving Side

Traffic driving on the left immediately limits your options to the UK, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya, and a handful of other countries. This single clue eliminates the vast majority of the world.

For a comprehensive guide to camera-reading strategies, see our CamGuessr tips and clue guide.

Leaderboards and Competition

CamGuessr maintains separate leaderboards for each mode and region combination — 21 leaderboards in total (3 modes x 7 regions). This means the top Classic World score and the top Classic Europe score are tracked independently, giving players multiple paths to compete.

How leaderboards work:

• The top 50 scores are displayed for each mode/region combination
• Scores are automatically submitted when a game ends — no manual action needed
• You must be logged in and have a chat nickname set to appear on the leaderboard
• No account is needed to play — only to submit scores
• Leaderboard data is stored in Firestore and updates in real time

The leaderboard system encourages specialization. Some players focus on mastering a single region (building deep knowledge of, say, European road infrastructure), while others compete on the World leaderboard, which demands the broadest geographic literacy.

CamGuessr vs. GeoGuessr

Both games test geographic knowledge, but the experience is fundamentally different.

CamGuessr is not a replacement for GeoGuessr — it is a different challenge that tests overlapping but distinct skills. The fixed camera angle and live conditions create a more constrained puzzle that rewards infrastructure knowledge over Street View meta-gaming. Many players enjoy both.

Getting Started

CamGuessr requires no download, no account, and no payment. Open trafficvision.live/camguessr in any modern browser and you are playing within seconds.

Recommended first games:

1. Start with Classic Mode, North America — The densest camera coverage and most familiar road infrastructure for English-speaking players. Road signs are often readable and highway systems are well-marked.
2. Try Europe — Forces you to distinguish between similar-looking countries. European road markings and signage follow continent-wide patterns with country-specific variations.
3. Attempt World — The ultimate test. You might get a snowy Finnish highway, a Brazilian urban intersection, a Japanese expressway, or a South African national route in consecutive rounds.

For region-specific practice, explore our camera guides for California, New York, or the United Kingdom to familiarize yourself with what cameras in those areas actually look like.