It’s a feature we’ve wanted for over a decade now, one that sites like AllOfCraigs and AdHuntr have tried to replicate, and Craigslist has finally made it official.
Sometime in the last few weeks, Craigslist widened its maximum search radius to 1,000 miles, allowing users to effectively search the entire United States in as little as two searches. This allows areas that would otherwise have gone unnoticed to be viewed as readily as any major city.
I’ve actually gotten the radius to go as high as 1,020 miles. The final number appears to be based on the underlying projection used in OpenStreetMap, the service Craigslist uses to visualize map data. It’s a projection called Web Mercator, and Craigslist’s integration of it means that the search radius actually changes slightly as you move around the map. That’s always been a factor when using Map View, but it’s more pronounced with these new larger radii.
If you want to search the entire country on Craigslist using as few moves as possible, the best way I’ve found is by using Bonanza, Utah and Cable, Ohio which both push the radius out to 1,020 miles. The result covers the entire country except the Olympic Peninsula of Washington and the southernmost tip of Texas.
I immediately put this new functionality to use by searching for competitors to the 1986 Corvette I’m preparing to sell. Naturally I found several that I wanted to buy instead, so maybe that’s not the best use case for this, or maybe I need more self control. Or – hear me out – I just need more Corvettes.
This new feature sure beats spending half an hour dragging a 250-mile radius circle around various parts of the United States hoping to uncover some rusty gold. A part of me will miss those nights – I might still do it now and then just for old times’ sake – but I won’t miss wondering if there was a smoking deal hiding in that little sliver of Wyoming that I didn’t search.
Because I have no self control, and therefore the distance I’m willing to drive for a project car is limited only by the fact that I can’t drive my truck and trailer across the ocean, this is almost certainly going to undo all the hard work I’d done lately to walk back my car hoarding. At least I can now push the blame off on Craigslist for enabling my addiction.
I have no idea where Fairwood is, but I’m on my way.
I’m sure in the near future my otherwise lonely part of Missouri will have a lot of new eyes on it. In fact, I predict this update will bring to Craigslist some of the urgency and competitiveness that us car hunters have come to love (or loathe) about Marketplace, where if you don’t get in contact within about 10 minutes of a car being posted you’re probably not even going to get a shot at it.
And in all seriousness, unless you just happen to know where Fairwood is, you’ll still have to interact with the map to figure it out.
Overall, I’m happy to see Craigslist embracing what the community wants and needs. Significant updates from Craigslist are rare in any form, and I’m relieved to not have to use the revolving door of buggy “all of Craigslist” sites just to find some dopamine.
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