I have data sets that contain, among many features, GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude). I'd like to use these data sets to explore problems such as: (1) computing ETA to drive between start and end points; and (2) estimating the amount of crime for a specific point.

I'd like to use linear regression model. **However, can I use these GPS coordinates directly in a linear model?**

Latitude and longitude do not have an ordinal property, such as with a person's age. For example, the two points (40.805996, -96.681473) and (41.226682, -95.986587) do not seem to have any meaningful ordering. They are just points in space. I was thinking of replacing them with categorical US zip codes and then doing one-hot encoding, but that would result in **a lot** of variables.