[imagesource: PA Images]

Across the globe, people are growing increasingly weary of being confined to our homes, or prevented from travelling abroad.

Sure, it’s not ideal, but we are in the midst of a global pandemic that has claimed at least 790 000 deaths.

Sat at your computer, there are a number of ways to escape the monotony, and things like virtual game drives have proven popular in South Africa.

If it’s taking to the air that you really miss, you may find Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 to your liking, and the popular video game has recreated almost every corner of the world, based on data and images from various mapping platforms.

A world of possibility awaits, but no prizes for guessing which island destination is seeing serious air traffic, as VICE reports:

As players finally get to spend more time with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, they’re finding several quirks in Flight Simulator 2020’s version of our world, including Buckingham Palace rendered as a boring office building and bizarre glitches that erect impossibly tall skyscrapers where they don’t exist.

But players have been flocking to one location in recent days for more troubling reasons: Jeffrey Epstein’s private island in Little St. James, U.S. Virgin Islands.

Little St. James is often referred to as “Paedophile Island”, and has come up recently in connection with allegations made against Prince Andrew.

Fancy a fly-by? You’re in luck – skip ahead to the 3:50 mark for an up-close look:

If that’s how you choose to spend your time, then alright.

The island isn’t exactly recreated in its original form, though:

There appears to be a building in the same spot where the domed building should be, but it looks completely different, and doesn’t have a dome. We don’t know if it was deliberately removed by Microsoft or if it’s simply rendered incorrectly, as are many other locations in the game…

If you’re curious about what the island looks like, you can get a much better idea by looking it up on Google Maps.

Head to the coordinates on Google Maps, and you’ll find this:

Thankfully, you can’t drop the little yellow person onto the map for a walk-around in ‘Street View’.

Small mercies.

[source:vice]