Exploring Second Life
Second Life is vast in size, and rich in things to do and places to see. The map here shows the primary Linden mainland continents, just to give an idea of how really huge SL is.
You can find a small sampling of places by looking in the viewer's top menu bar, World → Destinations.
A much larger list may be found on the Second Life Destination Guide. You can also explore Inara Pay's blog. In the top menu, click on SL→ Exploring Second Life.
Another way to explore is via Flickr groups. There are a very large number of Flickr groups devoted to Second Life, on many themes. landscape groups often require that each photo include the location in the description, so you can visit the place if the photo inspires you. A few such groups include:
Much of SL consists of resident-created builds and venues. Some of these last a very long time, but in general, places come and go quite quickly, for a variety of reasons. However, there are a large number of places which have been created by SL for the enjoyment of residents, and which are unlikely to vanish. Some of them date back to the early years of Second Life, and so are constructed using basic prims only, making them all the more amazing, in a way.
The team tasked with creating these places is known as the Linden Department of Public Works - or LDPW. The places are spread out all over the mainland continents, and so may be difficult to find. Most residents have probably only seen a small handful of them. The “Grid Hopping” section of this page (see tab above) lists primarily LDPW locations. The “Sight Seeing” section, instead, discusses ways in which you can explore SL yourself.
Use the tabs above to navigate the pages in this section.