Imagine - a Safari Finale

Medora Chevalier: if anyone cannot listen in voice in English please let me know - I will post the key points in chat

Thirza Ember: yes please, post key points in chat, Medora

Alazi Sautereau: it is so exciting to see all the different Virtual Worlds

Medora Chevalier: Alazi is welcoming you, sim is built by zimp. The Imaginals have been performing for 10 years, we welcome our virtual wanderers, we are going on a walking tour with many stories, stay to see our performance space at the end, and join a couple of dances, enable voice, set environment to midday, set draw distance to the highest you can manage, and LOD to 3 or more, and candles show the path.

James Atlloud: Can I ride this candle throughout the tour?

At first, it seemed as if the sim was based on real people, but gradually it became evident that the history being recounted was a fiction, like a sort of RP plot.

Aphra.Hendrix: Hello ! Happy to see you all, i was busy and did not see the time

Forest Azure: /me waves

Alazi Sautereau: We are in Voice, Welcome to those just arriving

Thirza Ember: hi those who finally made it

Trippin'

Hats off the Pathfinder, once again we have evidence of his greatness.
To take someone hypergridding for the first time doesn't sound like much of a big deal, especially these days. Yet, once you've volunteered to accompany a group, suddenly the enormity of the situation dawns. Urk!
The IMAB  group, who are currently working on a new multi-grid art festival, wanted some pointers on how to jump. Did you click on the link, and find, by way of an introduction to the project, a paragraph that is Byzantine at best, and probably copy/pasted from elsewhere, possibly from a notecard of some sort? Yeah, so did I.
It's never easy to establish a good time for teaching events, when you have people from all over the US and Europe who supposedly want to take part. I was secretly kind of glad when in fact only Alizarin Goldflake and Medora Chevalier showed up for our mini lesson.

The problem with hypergridding with newbies is that jumping is rarely instantaneous. Lag, or hesitation happens, and you spend a lot of time wondering if they are lost, or crashed, or slow, or what. Should you go back to look for them, or will that just make it worse? Are they not answering in IM because they are too far away? Should you mention the fact that they are now wearing only lingerie, or have no hair, or (blushes) boobage showing? I don't know how Path does it!
On this trip, I was a cloud for a long time, but the reason was obvious. My shoes. It was either the Invisiprims, or the fact that I had been editing linked parts while they were attached to me. Either way, simple solution - go barefoot.
There is no shortage of destinations. Maria Korolov's website Hyperica.com showcases both classic destinations, and newer ones, and Pathfinder's excellent blog hooks you up with new, or newly emerging places of interest, and lots of other people are blogging about their adventures too. Having missed out on going on HGAC trips in recent weeks, this trip with Medora and Alizarin re-kindled the desire to get back into the routine. Pathfinder helpfully sends out emails regarding upcoming trips, and often chronicles the event afterwards - it's all on his blog.

Void Pipe's Hypergates, Alba, Osgrid

So - where to go? It seemed appropriate to show them a beautiful 'old fashioned' blamgate, and your common or garden hypergate. We checked out the two examples on Void Pipe's beautiful sim in osgrid. Ali saw how clicking on the green hypergate opens a window suggesting destinations (the same kind of stuff found, obviously, on the Hyperica website.) Bear in mind that not all destinations are online, or still currently at that address. Grids move!
At this point, you want a nice, up-to-the minute 2D map of where all the grids are, to get it clear in your mind, don't ? Yeah.
I don't have one.

Hyperica Central

Anyway, then off we went to the Hyperica Central. As you know, the three Hyperica islands have pavilions on them, each containing about 30 or so hyperpools (direct links to specific destinations on other grids). The Pavilions make it easier to choose where to go - destinations are divided into 'Shopping', 'Activities', 'Education', and 'Main Grids'. You step over the hyperpool linked with your chosen destination - take a breath - and suddenly, you're elsewhere! However, if you don't fall through, well, choose another destination is my advice - that'a a much quicker route to fun and relaxation than trying to figure out why it didn't work. Alizarin fancied going to Pathlandia, but it seemed to be down. We ended up going to FrancoGrid. Once there, Ali got frozen. It was quite a surprise that she hadn't crashed really. My own first forays were full of horrendous crashing. Things have improved since then! We moved on to  New World Grid. It was Medora's choice, as she wanted to go somewhere educational. We found ourselves looking at Graham Mill's molecules on BioZone. Nice!

Biozone by Graham Mills

Lastly, off to VirtuYou, via the Map, to see the lovely Asterix sim (which needs more interactive scripts!). There were a couple of moments there when I thought I'd lost my companions, but no - we all managed to stick together, and it was a surprisingly smooth ride.
If you've already got half an idea where you want to go, say from this page of Landmarks, you can just  jump by using your Map. Here are the steps.
1. Open the Map, put the hypergrid address (it's going to have a number in it, like 8000 or 9000)
2. Hit Search, wait and see if the map can find it. If the destination is too far away, you'll need to find a stopover grid, somewhere in the middle.
3. Hit Teleport.
I've found that the Map will sometimes throw a wobbly, denying the existence of a specific sim or even a whole grid with the annoying message 'Invalid location'. But if it can't find the precise address, it will often find the grid's Main or Welcome sim, simply remove the name of the Landing area from the end of the address. Then you can refine your search once you arrive.

NIFLAR Asterix village, VirtYou

Seeing it through the eyes of my two friends, it was striking to realize how very different Open Sim is to SL. 

The loneliness, the freedom, the wildness of strange lands. 

Let's hope the IMAB project is able to capture that and share it with a wider audience.