Author Spotlight
Kelly Murphy
An abandoned factory, a fire in the shape of a triangle, a suitcase full of human remains — these are just a few of the randonauting discoveries I’ve seen while scrolling through TikTok.
Randonauting is a rising trend amongst teens that involves following randomly generated coordinates to specific locations as a way of exploring places you wouldn’t normally discover.
Those who go randonauting, aka randonauts, receive their coordinates through apps. Apps like Randonautica allow randonauts to customize their experience by making a number of decisions including the quantum point type, how far they’re willing to travel and the amount of locations they’ll visit.
Having gone on plenty of aimless, socially distant walks, I was eager to spice things up — and randonauting seemed like the perfect expedition to get me out of my quarantine slump. It sounded like a good way to kick off spooky season, so I grabbed a friend and we became randonauts for the afternoon.
A key aspect of randonauting is starting with a set intention or manifesting an idea which will supposedly influence your adventure’s outcome.
To set our first intention, my friend and I thought about how we’d been flooded with assignments and due dates since school began. We envisioned a calm, stress-free place with waterfalls, fluffy clouds and shades of blue and purple.
After our intent was set, the Randonaut Location Generator app gave us the coordinates 38.939080, -94.622370. Seconds later, I was backing out of my parking spot — just to hear my friend scream, “Stop!” I was on track to hit the car right behind me. Our quest to de-stress was off to a highly stressful start.
Twenty minutes later, we arrived at our destination: a beige, ranch style Leawood home. To avoid looking like burglars scoping out their next home robbery, we parked and walked down the street’s cul-de-sac. We passed a bright blue Volkswagen beetle, pots of purple chrysanthemums and a political sign that said “joy” — all of which fit our intention.
At the end of the street, we found a Little Free Library. My inner-book-nerd was ecstatic. But when I peeked inside the glass doors, I found titles like “Deadline,” “A Time to Kill” and “The Midnight House.” We were left wondering what the ominous books meant as we continued down the street in the opposite direction.
After wandering a few blocks from the original location, we stumbled upon a man-made lake surrounded by willow trees. The sunlight beautifully reflecting off the water left us in awe and was exactly what we had hoped to find.
After going randonauting, people typically compare their original intent with the outcome of their adventure. Based on the peaceful imagery we found mixed with the more sinister symbolism, the meaning that we took away from this portion of our journey was that when we die we’ll be at peace, so death isn’t something we should be afraid of.
For our next excursion, we set out with the intention of becoming more in touch with nature and animals.
To mix things up, we opted for a different app, Randonauting Adventure, to receive our next set of coordinates — 38,940948, -94.624687.
As we pulled into the parking lot at Brookwood Elementary School, I found myself hoping this trip wouldn’t be as freaky as the last. From there, we hesitantly made our way down a grassy hill to the playground.
At first glance, Brookwood’s playground was a far cry from the natural scene we were hoping for. A neon green and yellow plastic jungle gym complete with slides and ladders sat atop a layer of artificial turf.
But right before we left the playground to explore the school, a brown blob in the distance caught my attention. A stag with cream-colored antlers and a white spot on his neck stared at us as we stood still, taking in the moment.
Suddenly, a little boy chased the deer away, snapping us back to reality. We continued on, walking along the outside of the school where we discovered an abstract clock and a metal laser-cut phases of the moon art piece.
Although it was a bit of a stretch, we decided that being led to an elementary school that was surrounded by time-related pieces symbolized preparing to begin a new phase in our lives: adulthood.
Now that I’ve gone randonauting, I’d describe it as a real-life choose-your-own-adventure game.
There are some aspects of it that I’m skeptical of, like how randonauts claim that there’s science behind manifesting an idea and bringing it to life. I still don’t see how people could influence random outcomes with their mind.
For my friend and I at least, randonauting was more about breaking out of our Prairie Village bubble than forcing connections between the “signs” we found along the way.
Randonauting allowed us to catch a break from our screens and explore the outdoors. We took in our surroundings with a new focused mindset — noticing every insect and gum wrapper. I’d recommend randonauting to anyone looking to become more spontaneous and reconnect with nature.
Photos by Annakate Dilks
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