Who is Rainbolt? Geoguessr pro helps family track down memorial to honor grandmother's last wish

Gulf Of Mexico (America) - Photo Illustration - Source: Getty
Gulf Of Mexico (Gulf of America) (Image via Getty

Trevor Rainbolt, known to his online community simply as Rainbolt, is an American social media personality. He has amassed a following playing GeoGuessr, a browser-based geography game where players are dropped into a totally random location using Google Street View and must surmise their exact position on a map by observing environmental clues. Rainbolt has established himself as arguably the best GeoGuessr alive.

Rainbolt has recently used his unique skillset to help a family honor their late grandmother Betty's last wish to be buried with her husband. Her granddaughter reached out to Rainbolt, shared her story and the social media personality sprung into action, per Dexterto.

Her grandfather, Bob, had passed sometime in the 1980s and his ashes were scattered in the desert, where they also left a bowling bowl as a tribute to his life. In 2025, when his wife was on her deathbed, she requested for her ashes to be spread in the same location, though no one had kept track of exactly where it was after so many years. Using only a few photos and context clues, Rainbolt was able to pinpoint the right location and the family was able to put Betty to rest as per her last wishes.

On the incredible achievement Rainbolt shared the following,

“While finding a bowling ball in the middle of the desert seems impossible, it’s only impossible until someone does it.”

He continued,

“Forty years later, the bowling ball is still there. Betty and Bob were able to be together once again.”

The video recapping the story was uploaded to Rainbolt's TikTok account on August 13, and has already garnered close to three million views.


Rainbolt at a glance

Trevor Rainbolt began his Geoguessr journey during the COVID 19 pandemic, spending four to eight hours a day on the trivia game powered by Google Maps relentlessly honing his skills. He began his TikTok page under the username "georainbolt", in October 2021, and he has been steadily on the rise ever since. Rainbolt has been known to host pro GeoGuessr tournament live streams on Twitch, where the ranked players compete in 2v2, 3v3, or 4v4 brackets for a cash prize.

When speaking with The Washington Post in 2022, he gave some insight as to what he looks for, and the intuitive nature of his processs that sets him apart from other Geoguessrs,

"Once you see the countries and their soil colors [...] it's just human intuition [...] can I describe to you why I think that it looked like it was Nigerian soil? Probably not, but it does. It's just part of that sixth sense you pick up on when you play the game so much."

He continued by elaborating on his breakneck pace during ‘speedruns’ which truly distinguishes him from the rest of the field,

“I love the irony behind making Google Maps intense. I have to play into the irony, I feel like. Because it’s like ‘Oh, this guy is a professional Google Maps player.’ I have to own that, right? That’s like the most nerdy thing ever.”

Thanks to a blend of his personality and skillset, it seems that Rainbolt will stick around for a while.

Edited by Vinayak Chakravorty