What 3 Words is a website and mobile app that will identify any location in the world with a unique combination of just three words. More than just some novel concept or trendy gimmick, the what3words map is an algorithm driven global addressing system based on worldwide grid of 9 sq m units.

With more than 57 trillion three-word combinations, each pinpointing a specific 3m x 3m square somewhere on the planet, the system has serious potential for identifying the precise coordinates of remote locations for government, logistics, deliveries, emergency services and numerous other applications.

Considering at least 4 billion people in the world lack a physical address, What 3 Words can be a useful tool for anyone living way off the grid, at The Slabs for instance, or for remote tribal communities. Besides, it can just be fun too!

How to Pinpoint Your Location Using What Three Words

Finding your unique three word address is simple:

1. Visit what3words.com and Explore Map.
2. Enter your address or GPS coordinates.
3. Get unique 3 word address.

Or, use the free app to easily identify your exact location. Unfortunately, the app does not work on our iPhone 4. But it works on our iPad and fellow NüRVer Sam confirmed it works on his iPhone 5.

Feeling lucky, or just want to have fun? Enter any three word combination into the map, and see where it takes you!

Finding Our Way to Lebanon With W3W

When I first heard about What 3 Words in the NüRVers Faceborg group, I immediately had to look up our three words…

Live Work Dream

With so many word combinations, I expected this location might be somewhere in the middle of an ocean, if it even existed at all. But it turns out to be in the backyard of a home in Lebanon, Indiana. Big deal, you say? Well, Lebanon just happened to be along the way to the BlogPaws conference I was speaking at in Nashville, TN. So we just had to stop by, and see what if any relevance it had to us or our journey.

Why Indiana? The W3W algorithm actually assigns simpler, more common words to more populated areas and longer more complicated words are used for three word addresses in more unpopulated areas. But I digress…

What’s the big deal about Lebanon? Nothing that we could see. It’s a quaint little town, and our 3-word address is located behind a fence in the back yard of a nondescript house on a quiet street. After visiting the the Live Work Dream address, however, something interesting happened over the next couple weeks as we headed half way across the country.

The name “Lebanon” kept coming up in our travels! More than a few times—from Indiana to Tennessee via Pennsylvania—we drove by another town named Lebanon or found ourselves driving down Lebanon street.

What does it mean! I figure it was life telling us we were on the right track, headed in the direction we needed to be going. And sure enough, the conference was a great success. My presentation was well accepted, Wyatt was well behaved, and we had no major incidents along the way.

So I got to thinking about these three words. Whenever we got to some point of interest, I would check out What 3 Words described the location. Some of my findings were quite interesting. Keep in mind, these three-word addresses are generated completely at random, based on geolocation, with no apparent relevance to what’s located there…

For starters, as I write this from a parking lot on the last stop of our cross country tour, I quickly searched for the address and was excited to discover this…

OK, so that’s a stretch. But look what address I discovered at the final resting place of Isaac Hayes!

Yes, the three-word address for the grave of the Soul Man himself at Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis, TN is “Kicked Tune Ending”, quite apropos if you ask me. As is this address in some Northern Missouri farmer’s field…

Having done my share of ranch workamping, I know that hard work pays off. It may not always pay well, but it is hard work, and it pays.

Clearly, relevant three word addresses are pretty rare. But it’s fun to find one when you do! Wouldn’t it be great though, if you could claim your three word address?

When visiting Hatch Show Print in Nashville, I didn’t expect the legendary print shop to have it’s own unique address. But that is apparently in the middle of some Russian countryside.

What Are Your Three Words?

What three word address would you choose if you could have it? Look it up. Where is it?

Have you used the What 3 Words app? What do you think?