My internet thinks I am in another country after using my VPN on vacation

VPN
1

This is so weird. I was on vacation down in Costa Rica last week. I have been using OpenVPN for like a year now when on public access points on iOS, Mac, you name it. I used OpenVPN to connect to my RaspberryPi at my house throughout the whole trip being in hotels and airbnbs, I wanted a secure internet. What is weird is now that I am home my PC and Mac, which have both never left my house say YouTube CR now and even google is thinking I am in costa rica. I even used https://www.mapdevelopers.com/what-country-am-i-in.php and mind you I am using a desktop PC with no GPS which has never left my house since I built it, it is showing me at the house I was in Costa Rica for a couple of nights, but I am back in the US. How can I fix this? I do not even think its VPN related at this point (I have the Rpi off and this PC has never had OpenVPN on it). Has anyone else experienced this? I noticed other computers in my house are doing it as well. Its like my ISP or something thinks I am there it is so weird.

2

Looks like they use Google’s location services. Are you looged into a google account? Have you maybe set your location manually (scroll down on a google search page. Is there a country/address printed?)?
Last thing if that’s not the case is to clear all cookies and try again.

3

Yeah even all of our TVs in the house with YouTube are serving Spanish ads now. So weird. And I don’t even use a google account on those.

4

It’s been about 2 weeks since I have been back and it’s still happening. Does anyone know how to fix it? Even YouTube searches are coming up with Latin America channels instead of the US based ones on my TVs now. Google.com still says Costa Rica on all my devices at the bottom as well.

5

Figured I’d update. I found a setting in my modem to renew/release the public IP. Did that have a new IP now and the issue is fixed. It knows I’m in the us now.

6

Google in your phone has access to GPS location.

7

Google constantly scans MAC addresses of visible wifi (even if not connected to it) and uses them to geolocate you in the absence of an actual GPS source.

so, it has probably flagged the MAC of your Pi as being in Costa Rica (because it was, for a while)

I have had similar experiences when moving accesspoints between countries.

Just wait, and it will eventually sort itself out. I am unaware of any way you can specifically force it to change.