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Who else loves maps?
With the recent slagging guidebooks are getting in another thread, it came to my notice there seems to be nothing but love for the venerable map.
A friend of mine insists that given enough time (and beer) all really great conversations will eventually involve getting out a map. I find maps can be really inspirational bits of paper, I can get more fired up looking at the right map than I would at an 'old master'. Old ones, worn at the folds and stained from the road, are my favourite souvenirs. Do you have a favourite map? Mine is either my battered IGN of Morocco that has made the trip twice now, or an old and now seriously out of date map of glencoe which I covered with sticky back plastic that was meant to go on the outside of my 'O' Grade maths book... I am aware this thread may mark me out as a cartography geek and am quite prepared to pull it if I get nothing but a slagging! :) Matt :) |
Great thread...
I love maps too... I used to work a a security guard at Covent Garden, just around the corner was Stanfords. I spent many happy lunch breaks there, and not much money... I now collect maps and Atlases... Old and used are best. My personal favourites are the 1988 Michelin Maps of Africa which I used for my 1st Trans Africa. I also have a nice series from India for the same period. I have a wall with maps of Africa from the 1500's to present... just lovely. Our visitors often comment on them... So we are not unique... Graham |
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On the wall of my 'study' (box room) I have a map I bought while still at school. On it I have drawn all the routes I've taken on my travels. Flights in one colour, boats another and overland, yet another. The great thing is noting how much the world has changed. This map still has the 'Soviet Union' etc. But I'm happy with that. Eventually, when I'm an old man I can look at all the travels I've done and wonder at how much the world has changed since I started travelling. Matt :) |
Over the last 48 years I have had three longish periods of being a very active (and moderatly successful) car rally navigator - competing mainly throughout the UK.
While competing I was following and calling every inch as we sped on, picking up much additional information which could possibly assist the driver - such as anticipating road surface changes on parish or district boundries. My regret with motorcycling (as much as driving) is that one cannot follow them so closely in 'real time'. I have kept every map and the intended purpose of any trip to the attic is invariably abandoned when I get to the huge pile of 1 inch and 1:50,000 Ordinance Survey maps. I can, and do, spend endless hours pouring over them. Sad? |
Yep,
My ex got frustrated me spending more time with maps then with her. And now I'm in the map making business. The Michelin 741 for sure is my favourite map. I also like the russian topo maps when printed. ;-) |
A friend of mine is a distant descendant, and shares the surname, of John Speed, the mapmaker (John Speed Map Plates). He's also into cartography and the walls of their house are filled with antique maps, organised by region. Most look extremely valuable, so I'd better not say exactly where I live!
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I love a map -
the best being (for me) British Ordinance Survey or Michelin maps. They are objects of beauty and I love them to bits. I worked in the Fisherfield Forest north of Loch Maree in NW Scotland in the late 70's and nothing gives me more pleasure than to pore over a map of where I took my ponies each day. These were deerstalking ponies, for carrying the carcasses of the red deer off the mountain; we culled around 10% per autumn, around 100 stags, and then more hinds in winter. I also used many other area maps, such as Glencoe, Loch Lomond area, Ben Alder, Rannoch Moor etc etc. Maps were my dreams when enduring a week in shipyards or oil rigs -the thought of doing a big walk kept you going through the week. To say nothing of nursing an old BSA up over Rannoch on a winter Friday, with crap lights and brakes, and no certainty of reaching the (wild) campsite that night. Now I also get pleasure from the Michelin maps and I think of North Africa in particular. In fact, these different maps trace the changes in my life. I am not yet won over to GPS use, as I find the map a pleasure. |
This thread should be in the navigation forum
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Matt, An excellent thread that does not deserve to be "relegated" to the slagheap of the HU bar: you may be surprised already at the positive answers you have received. I am one more horder of maps: no idea of how many there are, but I have always tried to get hold of a map of anywhere that I have ever visited. Doesn't matter what scale it is. It is the only souvenir that I must have from travelling. I have also picked up things like old atlases from second hand book shops that show the world as it used to be: great stuff for comparing with modern maps of the world (my, how many countries have changed names and, my, how many new countries there are in existance). ps I also like to understand the flags of countries, but I don't collect them - they always have something to say about the nation. |
Great thread Matt.
Yes the Michelin series and north Africa in particular really do it for me - such beautiful colors and inspirational places. But it's an area of the World I still have to really explore. I would love to get some antique maps - it's great to see the old British Empire and see how the World map looked 100 years ago. It's truly fascinating how the World is still changing but I guess that we won't see any major change in mapping for the distant future as we did with the break up of the USSR. What about globes? I've got a great 18" floor globe that seems to always stop on Africa when spun! Then there are the map facts. How long can you look at a map before figuring out something amazing like Afghanistan - the only country name with three consecutive letters of the alphabet or the only place where four countries meet...... |
Map fanatic here too- I read 'em on the toilet, before falling asleep at night and have them stacked around at work and home. I've saved them all, topo, road, country, world, and National Geographic.
Careful map study has led me to places in Alaska, Peru, Mexico and Europe as well as throughout the US and my own backyard I never would have found in a guidebook. And when I get there I have a better feel for the lay of the land and almost feel as if I've been there already. “A road map always tells you everything except how to refold it” - anon |
So many maps --- so little time.
Maps - roads maps from even 20 years ago have old roads on them that are no longer on the main maps .. very usefull .. keep your old maps .. they will tell of 'roads' that others don't use .. because they don't know they exist..
I hate to think of the numbers of maps I have .. What I do now is scan them - print them out for a short trip and write notes as I go along .. very usefull for making electronic maps (both raster and vector).. with added detail! Yep I'm collecting the electronic ones too .. they take less room, don't get dusty nor 'fox' like paper. |
I love them to I dont know how many I have. Stare at them all the time trying to find a reason Im not going there. Like Im broke and need money, Its snowing, I promised to get this job done before I go off. Some are old and so out dated Id never use them on a trip.
My favorites are from National Geographic ones with roads and history's on them. I like to use my older road atlas on trips ripping out pages of the places Im going more of an overview of places I may want to go to and drop my planed route. I alwas have more at the end of a trip than when I stared. I dont even plan far enof to know where I end up. Most are riped up and stained. I dont have a GPS I like the idea of them but more for the logging of I have been than where Im going. I can do that with a map and save the cash. |
On the other hand....
Graham Greene wrote a book titles "Journey without maps". This set me thinking how interesting it might be to bike say, to Istanbul from the UK without any map at all, and see what happened. This would replicate the way of the medieval traveller who had to ask often and hope that the directions were right. Of course, asking for directions to Turkey in France would not be helpful, as most of us know our local region only. I certainly couldnt tell anyone, even in a common language, how to get to a faraway country.
It would also bring us into closer contact with the people we meet, as we would need them more. This concept would revolutionise how we travel. We'd need more time, for a start. If you excluded the use of a compass, then it really would be different.... |
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Nice idea Caminando. |
A Late friend from New Zealand used to say he traveled the world by studying maps.
Myself I like to keep all my maps and they are covered with scribbles of places I camped and good tracks and routes I took. They also include all the mishaps like were me and the CCM ended up at the bottom of a gorge in spain lucky for me a moutain biker helped me manhandle the beast back to a track. Even better than real maps are the scrawls people draw when directing you when youre lost sometimes they make perfect sense and sometimes they are strange doodles that allow you to find new and interesting places that you never knew existed. (this is all getting a bit heavy I better go do some work) |
Great thread, I love maps as well, ever since I was a kid and was into Orienteering, even got to make maps for a few Orienteering events.
My wife hates maps - my fault as I always give her a hard time about having to turn the map around to look at it - reading a map is a definite skill that a lot of women lack (ducks swinging handbags). One of my favourite maps is a photocopy of a hand drawn mining map I was given by a road train driver on the road into Innamincka in Australia. It covered the area down South to Tibooburra. It showed the "roads" (sand and gravel tracks) and all the "shot line" tracks put in for the mining exploration. There was also notations about sand dunes - easy, hard, no. |
Me too
Me too. I was lucky, 50 yers ago my scout master had been a map maker in the army, dashing about in the desert, Italy and Normandy in a scout car, so he taught us well. Trouble is you don't get a book of maps in OS detail that covers S.America, so my laptop and Garmin have to take over on the road.
The most interesting map I have seen was a stereoscopic one of a Greek island in Scientific American about 30 years ago I guess. It had green and red lines and you needed a pair of 3D glasses but it really brought the terrain alive, and the undersea terrain as well. I would think that for those to whom elevation lines are a mystery, this would have bought instant clarification. No one seems to be against paper maps, oh and Caminando, despite all of the modern wonders strapped to my bike, I still seem to be wandering about in the dark....Signor, donde est la carreterre por favor? ....and why is the sun in the wrong part of the sky? My shadows pointing the wrong way! and who pinched Ursa Major? I'm always amazed when I get to where I planned to be using the Garmin which is miles out sometimes, and also tells me there are roads where there are not, last week it told me to go back 79 miles, make a U turn and arrive at my destination half a mile up the road in 2 hrs!!! A paper map would reassure me loads. |
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Sorry but I just had to know. |
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Recently bought an OS wallmap of Europe which you can use drywipe markers on. It's not the ideal scale but can easily lose an hour just by scrawling potential routes and places to visit all over it. Kind of reassuring to know it's not just me that has a map fetish. BTW, I do use GPS and Google Earth a lot but I'd never consider setting off without a map and compass. I take the attitude that one compliments the other. |
Another fan here
Yep, love maps, don't know why. Over the years, I've collected many, mostly OS maps of the UK for walking. I would never throw one out and I'd never draw on one.
I love pouring over maps working out possible routes, looking for interesting features. On the desk at the moment, I have a map of Germany for a long weekend ride to the Harz mountains and three maps of Scandinavia for a longer trip this summer. Love Stanfords in London, will happily pay full price for a map but buy my books in charity shops. Also, being a bit of a technophobe, and a tightwad, I think I'll keep to maps rather than GPS for a while longer. I can see where GPS would help out in the desert or conversely navigating an unfamiliar city but it'll never give you the whole picture. For route planning, looking at the surrounding area, all the different coloured roads and twisty bits, finding villages with quirky names, there's nothing like looking at a map and thinking, 'Hmm, rather than take this route, how about that one?' Indoors |
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Matt :) |
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Matt :) |
I love maps. All maps. Particularly those that are printed on almost tear and waterproof paper such as a german outfit whom I can't remember their name. But maps are good. You need them. They're great to spill beer and wine on, and to get soaked in the rain. They are fun to look at in dimly lit bars in back alleys of places others will never believe you've been. Maps are life. They are beautiful. and they are your best friend.
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There be dragons here
My love of maps is so tied to my love of exploration it's pathological. The first maps that captured my soul where the ones in national geographic magazines. They, of course, showed the most remote, exotic and far away places. How could a boy of 10 resist a map where it was printed "There be dragons here".
Maps of jungles, oceans, abondoned civilizations, the moon, Mars; they all covered my bedroom walls at some point. For me, maps are now like a good adventure book - only one to be lived not just read. Like a new bought book, it is crisp and unmarked. As the trip takes shape, the map grows gets new folds, marks and stains. Then during the trip it reflects the wear of thumb, road and sun. By the end, it is tattered, torn, and road weary - like me. And every time I pick up that treasured map, the trip floods back. Now, my maps show me the places I want to make sure I visit, the best road to take, and where I'll stop at night. However, every once in a while, I look for those places that so fascinated me in younger years (officially at old-fart-stage now). Those places that are blank. The places where there are no features, no roads, and no clues. Those are the places, after all, where, "there be dragon". Peace, and very pleasant daydreams, Narly |
I sometimes wonder if my love of maps comes from the little ink drawn maps I often found in the hard back books about adventure that I read as a child. I'd pull down some dusty tome from my dad's bookshelf and open up the front cover and inside would be a map relating to the area in which the action happened. Often the maps would be sketches drawn by the author with annotations such as "Attacked by cannibals here." etc!
I particularly liked that these maps often represented things, rather than with symbols, with quite lifelike drawings. i.e. not contour lines, but a little drawing of a mountain, or a realistic representation of a river (complete with rapids and waterfalls) rather than a blue line. I would always love being able to refer back to the map whilst reading the book, to see just where such and such an event happened, or how far they still had to travel to find the source of the river/hidden diamond mine/enemy encampment etc! I have always sworn that if I ever get round to writing a book it will a have a sketch map in the front cover, complete with annotations, lines of long. and lat. and a little compass point in the bottom right hand corner! Matt :) |
its all about the map
Matt,
dude, its all about the map... given the choice of a GPS or a Map I would choose the latter every time.. Not only is it no doubt out of date and get lost/broken/torn but it gives so much more of an adventure, exploring random roads and markings... my father on the other hand, is the exact opposite, swearing by his GPS.. weird hay? would have thoughht the younger son, grown up on technology and the internet would be the opposite... |
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Not that I don't love maps, but don't rule out differenet ways to use the GPS too :) |
maps
For our trip trough Africa I bought many maps of various makes of all countries that we might possibly cross. Ended up with about 35 maps and all laminated them with sticky plastic. Took me weeks but even after intensive use on our trip they are still very good.
Every time I want to look up something, when watching Discovery or NG I take out the maps, they are always within an arm length. On the wall I have the Michelin Worldmap and look at it almost every day. A friend of mine glued all Michelin maps of Africa together, cut the shape of Africa out along the shorelines and glued it to the wall like wall paper! Really nice! I might do that too, just need some space! Cheers, Noel exploreafrica.web-log.nl |
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I've thought about doing something similar with European maps. Like I said in my last post in this topic, I think the maps that you can use with whiteboard markers are a great idea at the rough planning stage. For this reason, I'm thinking about making a table with a glass top and maybe a large scale map of the Alps, the Black Forest or the Eifel mountains under it. May well be useful in planning routes, but If I'm honest, I'd do it just because it would look nice. I know, I'm sad. |
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GPS maps can be good too - Gramins City Nav types hide the small roads until you zoom right in.. not good in the countryside. Tracks 4 Australia, Shonky Maps, Tracks 4 Africa all look to have that set up correctly .. at least for my use (ofr course they don't cover every part of the globe, just their specific areas.). |
I am a novice GPS guys and heading that way. But I will never give up "real" maps.
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Dangerous places for Maps - Morocco .. they don't like maps showing 'Western Shara' ... they consider it to be part of Morocco. And then there are other disputed places .. best not to display maps around those parts ... |
Oh, thank goodness I'm not the only one with a map fetish! I love looking at maps and remembering places I've been and things I've done there. You can look at somewhere you got lost and realise how easy it was to get back to where you needed to be instead of the thirty mile detour you took!!!
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map fetish
I think the map fetish might be common factor amongst our kind of travellers! I was born that way. I remember when was very young, 10 years old or so, reading books of the great explorers with on one side a world atlas and on the other side an encyclopedia! How about that for a predisposition
cheers, Noel |
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I think I might try this one day when I have open ended time to spare. I mean the mapless journey. Of course I have some idea in my memory of, say, a map of Europe, which I cant erase......still, it would be interesting to find out..... |
Thank god - people are comong out !!
I was a navigator in the Merchant Navy - maps & charts - powerful things full of information. I have my copy of nautical tables - every destination in the world I have been to is marked. World map marked up for posterity. Sextant gathering dust, but I wouldn't part with it. GPS - for the boys - & me when I feel the need. |
Its not a fetish, its normal
:stupid:I've just always pored over maps, right from age eight or thereabouts, working out how to get to Cannon Hall on my pushbike, around 18 miles round trip. I've been doing it ever since, its the ones who don't that are odd :biggrin3:
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I too am a map freak. The most expensive thing I bought when I was 13 years of age was a Times Atlas Of The World (yes, capitals). It became my bible, I still use it whenever I want to dream about remote places. Cheers Andre Imaginature |
I admit to map fetishism too. I have done Panamerica, Transafrica and 'London to Sydney' many times - on paper.
My wife makes fun of me, that I am carrying my maps behind me, like Linus his blanket. |
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