Google Maps and its Street View feature are great resources for discovery. These tools let you explore cool and exotic places you might never see in person.

Google Maps is also great for scoping out places that you're a little unsure of. Using high-resolution photos, you can look around neighborhoods where leaving your car parked overnight might not be the best idea. You can even "visit" areas that are better off avoided altogether.

These 13 places are actually better experienced through Google Maps than in person. You'll quickly see why...

1. Rocinha in Rio De Janeiro. It's currently Brazil's largest favela.

A "favela" is a Brazilian slum, most often located in urban areas.

2. Liberty City, Miami.

3. Tepito, a barrio in Mexico City. This area is famous for its high crime rate.

4. Skid Row, Los Angeles. This area has the largest population of homeless people in the United States.

5. Not all parts of Chicago are nice places.

6. The Aylesbury housing project in Walworth, London. It's notorious for poverty and drug crimes.

7. The means streets of Klongtoey in Bangkok, Thailand.

8. Bogota, Colombia. This South American city is one of the most dangerous places in the world.

9. This area of Bucharest, Romania, is well known for its high crime rate, drug dealers, and mob bosses.

10. Józsefváros, Budapest, Hungary.

11. The Jane and Finch district of Toronto, Canada, is better off avoided.

12. The Golyanovo District in Moscow, Russia, is not where you want to stop and ask for directions.

13. Welcome to Houston's Fifth Ward.

Now I certainly know where I'm not planning my next vacation. Still, It's important to remember that these are just certain areas of much larger cities. Every city on Earth has its good parts and its bad parts, and behind every one of these pictures, there could be a lovely town center out of view...maybe.