(CNN) An 11-year-old boy drove 200 miles across South Carolina to meet a stranger he knew only on Snapchat, the Charleston Police Department said.

After three hours of driving, the young boy spotted a police officer, pulled up next to his vehicle and said he was lost, according to police. The child drove from the northwest town of Simpsonville to Charleston.

He told the officer early Monday morning he had taken his brother's car to go to Charleston where he wanted to live with "an unknown male he met on Snapchat," police said.

But when he lost GPS signal on his father's tablet, he couldn't recover the man's address, police said, as Snapchat messages disappear or are deleted after they're read.

The child was able to give the officer his name, his father's name and his cell phone. He was reunited with his family later in the day.

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