The Monster Children Guide To Finding Skate Spots In Your City With Technological Precision
2020 was a time.
I was going to write ‘simpler time’ but I’m not too sure if it was. The world was in complete turmoil, everything around us was going to shit. I spent the better part of that year locked in my room doing online classes every day. Spending the time when I wasn’t in class or working on assignments on Google Maps trying to find every spot in Melbourne. I don’t play video games so that became my video game. Each spot I found was an achievement, a win. Of course, I didn’t know how good these spots were or if they were even skateable, I couldn’t go more than five kilometres from my house at the time. The world was in lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19.
Because of that, my Google Maps looks like this. 755 blue pins. Most of which are in the greater Melbourne area. The list includes spots that have had every trick possible done on them to spots that haven’t ever been touched by a skateboard and everything in between.
Where did my obsession with finding spots come from?
I can pinpoint it to a Sean Malto Gatorade commercial that came out before I could even ollie. He was driving around and “stumbled” across a flatbar spot in an alleyway, Chaz Ortiz and him skated that flat bar to absolute death. Instantly eleven-year-old me couldn’t wait to get my licence and drive around the streets of Melbourne in hopes of finding a dream spot behind some crusty old fish-packing warehouse. I’ve spent over half my life searching for that perfect flat bar and I still haven’t found it. This year is the year I can sense it!
As I got older my inspiration for wanting to find spots shifted and became more thought out. Tom Karangelov’s, Keeping the Flame part by Matt Bublitz essentially changed my life. He skated spots I’d never seen, in a way that was smart, thought out, well-planned and interesting. It made me realise there was more to skateboarding than just the tricks, the spots played such a large role. His third last trick is a nailslide on a handrail. It blew my mind; he was able to find spots that I’d never thought existed. It made me want to deep dive into trying to find every unskated spot in Melbourne. Tom K is arguably one of the world’s best spot hunters and has found basically every spot in the greater Los Angeles area. His creativity and dedication to finding spots is unmatched. Instantly, his video parts became my bible, the blueprint, trying to find spots that looked like his. Spots that almost didn’t seem to be real. If you watch any of my footage you can see many references to his skateboarding. I didn’t want to skate the spots that had been completely rinsed anymore.
If you’re finding yourself in that same boat, being over skating the same spots that you’ve been skating every day or looking for some new spots to skate. You’re in the right place; here is a guide to finding every single spot in your city using Google Maps.
Before you go anywhere, think about where the spots are in your city that you know of. Look through spot pages, go through your camera roll and watch local videos to jog your memory.
Once you’ve done this, go to Google Maps and use the drop pin feature to drop pins at the location of each spot. This is one of my favourite ways to do it, it helps for easy access when you’re looking for the spot or sharing it with your friends who you will meet at the spot. It also helps visualise what is in each zone. I will title each pin with what the spot is e.g., ‘Stoop across and down’.
By mapping out the spots that you already know of in your city, you get a good grasp of what has already been skated and what areas have already been searched through. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to look through the blank areas. My go-to method is using the satellite view on Google Maps and looking for areas that aren’t residential and that have no blue dots. Once starting to look, drop pins at everything you see that looks at least potentially skateable.
I’ll usually start by looking for industrial areas. Once I find one that looks like it has some spots from above, I’ll go in and start scouring the area using street view. Sometimes, you know after a few streets that there won’t be much in that area, other times you might come across spot Disneyland. The older industrial areas are the ones that usually have the most spots. I go for these because they have the spots that I like to skate. I like the way the spots look, they’re usually a bit older, crustier, surrounded by red brick warehouses and on the weekend the concrete wastelands are ghost towns so there is little chance of getting kicked out or hassled there. Make sure when you go to skate these spots you bring a rub brick, it’ll be necessary for the amount of crust out there.
From industrial areas, I’ll start looking at town centres. Try to focus on non-gentrified areas, there will either be some old crusty gold in there or a brand-new plaza that hasn’t been touched by a skateboarder. Beyond that you might get lucky with some LA looking crust behind a row of shops. I’ve found some cool manual pads, ledges, ollies and wallie behind rows of storefronts.
Weird business zones outside of the city. Recently, I’ve found these strange business areas outside of the city, they’re normally off main roads and have buildings that wouldn’t really be able to exist anywhere else with odd and unique features that create unique spots.
‘like, what is that building on the right?’
Universities usually have a lot of spots. You might be surprised by what you can find in the universities that are regularly skated too. There can be some untouched gems amid the main spots on campus. The universities further out from the centre of the city are likely to have less security and less people skating them. I’ll always run a Google images search on those universities to see if there are any spots in the background of any photos. If I notice some potential, I’ll trek out to them and walk around them. Try not to skate around universities you will draw attention to yourself and if you do get kicked out it will be because you skated right past a security guard.
If you want to find new spots in the city, looking around while walking or skating is better than using Google Maps. In the city, you will need to look extra hard and be creative with what you’re finding for spots. You might have to uncap some things in potentially red-hot areas. If you are liberating new spots in the city, be prepared for these spots to become hotspots within days of there being wax on them or any marks. They’re in areas people regularly walk past and now they’ve visibly skated, people will follow in your footsteps. Also, at the same time, you might not even have to uncap anything. You'll be surprised what is hiding in plain sight.
‘This spot is at the main university in Melbourne right across from a spot that has been getting rinsed for the past few years.’ Photo: Brendan Frost
Okay, so now you’ve got some spots it’s time to check them out in person.
Google Maps is great and Street View is an incredible tool to use but do not drag a whole crew out to a spot you found using it unless you’ve been there in person first. There is a high likelihood it probably isn’t as good as you think it is and your friends will all hate you for wasting their Saturday when you could’ve just had a good time skating the plaza in the city that’s been a hotspot for the past fifteen years.
If you have a car, drive out and look for these spots. It’s the easiest way to cover the most ground. You might also find some more spots while you’re looking at your Google Maps findings. I find the best time to drive looking for spots is earlier in the morning on the weekend. There are fewer cars on the road, so it’s easier and safer to drive when your eyes are darting around looking for spots. I’ll normally pick an area and go out to that zone, park my car then walk and skate around the area. Being able to scope out the zone on foot allows you to look behind buildings, look around alleyways and small walkways that you can’t see from the street or on street view. When driving around please drive safely and be careful of obstructions. While driving looking for spots I have accidentally scraped brick walls, hit rubbish bins, and reversed into a dumpster, whoops. So please be careful!
‘I reversed into the blue dumpster on the right side of the above photo.’
Riding a bike is good too. Arguably it is the best method for finding spots, you don’t have to get out of a car or stop and start. It is easy to zip around areas and go into tight spots, like walkways and at the back of warehouses.
Skating is perfect if you are looking for spots in the city or a small area with relatively smooth ground.
When you go looking at the spots in person, bring your phone with you and take photos of every spot you come across, even the ones you don’t think you have ideas for because on second look you might realise a way of skating them you didn’t even notice while you were there. I find it best to put all the photos into a spot folder on your phone, just so you don’t have to look through your whole camera roll every time you need to show someone a spot.
This is what works best for me. I hope it helps you out too. Get on Google Maps, then go out, have fun, find new spots, fix up spots, skate them and get clipped up.