Any of You Enthralled with Maps?

Is it considered cheating in GeoGuessr if you see a road sign and use that to place your guess?

Love this game. Find it interesting how some terrains 10s of thousands of miles apart can look so similar.

Me. I actually majored in geography because I loved maps. I would read some of my textbooks just for fun. Yeah, that's pretty nerdy, but don't you wish you liked reading your textbooks? That it wasn't such a chore? I think I enjoyed my college classes more than most.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Caffed Up wrote:

how crazy it is that I could walk from North Korea to Norway and only pass through one other country.

You could row a boat from NK to Norway without passing through any other countries at all!

You can row a boat in a straight line from Eastern Canada (Newfoundland) to Western Canada (Vancouver Island) without touching land.

I love maps and cartography. I have a decent collection of useful, but not valuable maps and map books. I have probably the world's largest collection of hotel running maps, which is not saying much. Most decent hotels have them.

I started collecting ski trail maps of all the ski areas my family went to when we were kids, I had dozens and sadly lost them at some point. As a military pilot, when I was a young lieutenant, one of my duties was to keep track of all the squadron's VFR and IFR sectionals and approach plates; I created the world's best and most complete collection of DOD maps for all the pilots. Now I look for cool little maps like transit maps, pop-up maps, race course maps (I have a NYC Marathon map on a dog tag). Cool stuff, maps are fun.

zephito wrote:

Me. I actually majored in geography because I loved maps. I would read some of my textbooks just for fun. Yeah, that's pretty nerdy, but don't you wish you liked reading your textbooks? That it wasn't such a chore? I think I enjoyed my college classes more than most.

A grade school teacher gave me next years text books and told me to read them like novels over the summer. That ranks right up there with my Grandma telling me don't sleep with anyone crazier than you are as great advice.

Me too. But I don't fancy that walk through Russia.

Uzhorod wrote:

And thanks for mentioning GeoGuessr: Fun stuff!

Especially when you realize you can move around by clicking on the arrows. I scored 24987 by wandering around until I knew for sure. It took a long time though, including going down a slope at a ski resort. Apparently the driver actually got out of the car and skied down the slope.

I am also fond of maps.

Anyone else ever hear of London cab drivers and how they have to pass a test on \"The Knowledge\"? I remember when I first found out about that, I thought it was very cool, and would study maps of my home town, trying to develop a knowledge of it similar to that which a London cab driver has of London.

Kind of thanks, I guess, for mentioning GeoGuessr... I staye up until 1:30am playing it, haha. Definitely a new addiction.

Love the ski slope story. Two things happened to me while playing: it dropped me off in western Russia, in the middle of nowhere, about 200 meters away from what appeared to be a nasty car wreck. Lady on the ground, car flipped over on the shoulder, and people standing over the woman. Got a sick feeling seeing that. Also got dropped off near a kitschy highway stop we used to pass as kids on the way to the beach... Of all the places in the world!

Also, to the point someone else made about different areas of the world looking similar... I spent about 20 minutes poking around an area before deciding it just HAD to be in the Deep South. Finally settled on Arkansas and was dead wrong. It was northern Pennsylvania. So weird.

Glad I'm not the only one who likes maps.

I love maps and have been thinking about the kind of jobs where I could take advantage of this. Some sort of GIS analyst? Any ideas? Thanks for the geoguessr thing, I'll look it up.

mapssss wrote:

I love maps and have been thinking about the kind of jobs where I could take advantage of this. Some sort of GIS analyst? Any ideas? Thanks for the geoguessr thing, I'll look it up.

i really can't stand my job and literally yesterday googled "jobs using maps" haha. i wish i had the tech expertise required for most of the map-related jobs these days. i'll probably have to come up with something creative.

The free map from Cracker Barrel is pretty good showing mostly the Interstate System and major arteries. Plus every spot you can order a Sunrise Sampler - yum!

Figured I would add the places it dropped me off, just because it is fun to find them again and share...

Caffed Up wrote:

Two things happened to me while playing: it dropped me off in western Russia, in the middle of nowhere, about 200 meters away from what appeared to be a nasty car wreck. Lady on the ground, car flipped over on the shoulder, and people standing over the woman. Got a sick feeling seeing that.

There is nothing overly graphic, but I figured I would share the two incidents in the spirit of the thread. I am assuming she was okay, or Google wouldn't have put this on there:

Caffed Up wrote:

Also got dropped off near a kitschy highway stop we used to pass as kids on the way to the beach... Of all the places in the world!

Check out the site/Twitter feed of brilliantmaps.com

Love that site.

Also read a great book on the history and importance of maps, I'll get the name of it tonight.

I enjoy Betty Hill's star map, showing the location of Zeta Reticuli, the star system the aliens (that abducted her and her husband in the 1960s) came from.

Caffed Up wrote:

There is nothing overly graphic, but I figured I would share the two incidents in the spirit of the thread. I am assuming she was okay, or Google wouldn't have put this on there:

https://goo.gl/maps/gX3KQqfbLv82

Only in Russia..

I have always been intrigued by the quirkiness of how borders are drawn and the history that lead to things like this Spanish "island" in France:

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4651762,1.980982,13z

Or why is there a little notch out of the top of Connecticut?

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.0196748,-72.7947682,13z

While traveling, our family has on several occasions stopped at different tri-state markers to play a game of catch simultaneously across three different state borders.

Finance Guy wrote:

I have always been intrigued by the quirkiness of how borders are drawn and the history that lead to things like this Spanish "island" in France:

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4651762,1.980982,13z

Or why is there a little notch out of the top of Connecticut?

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.0196748,-72.7947682,13z

While traveling, our family has on several occasions stopped at different tri-state markers to play a game of catch simultaneously across three different state borders.

I've always liked the Northwest Angle in Minnesota because of its quirkiness.

Finance Guy wrote:

I have always been intrigued by the quirkiness of how borders are drawn and the history that lead to things like this Spanish "island" in France:

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.4651762,1.980982,13z

Cool. This is even more erratic: Bits of Belgium in The Netherlands.