# Did you spend time just looking at maps as a kid? Anyone else still do it as an adult? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 21, 2018, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320 "2018-07-21T11:51:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Shinna\_Minna\_Ma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@Shinna\_Minna\_Ma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shinna_Minna_Ma)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2018, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/81 "2018-07-22T20:12:19Z")
Absolutely! As a kid I could get lost in road maps for hours. I loved as an adult that I could order endless TripTiks and guide books from AAA. Besides the maps, I loved reading the restaurant listings in the guide books. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2018, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/82 "2018-07-22T20:19:00Z")
[https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/) fun maps from posters about absolutely everything [http://www.oldmapsonline.org/](http://www.oldmapsonline.org/) Find old maps for any area of the world [http://www.topotijdreis.nl/](http://www.topotijdreis.nl/) old netherlands maps [http://www.historicmapworks.com/](http://www.historicmapworks.com/) Old maps tilted towards genealogical research [World History Maps & Timelines | GeaCron](http://geacron.com/home-en/?&sid=GeaCron381833) more world history maps plus timelines [https://www.historicaerials.com/](https://www.historicaerials.com/) a wide variety of old aerial photos done for mapping purposes [Timelapse – Google Earth Engine](https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/) google earth with a timelapse element [Distance Calculator](http://www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-distance-calculator.htm) google maps distance calculator [Google Maps Area Calculator Tool](http://www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-area-calculator-tool.htm) google maps area calculator [http://www.allareacodes.com/](http://www.allareacodes.com/) area code boundaries, very precise!! [http://www.zipmap.net/](http://www.zipmap.net/) zip code boundaries, again very precise! [40 Maps That Will Help You Make Sense of the World » TwistedSifter](http://twistedsifter.com/2013/08/maps-that-will-help-you-make-sense-of-the-world/) interesting, if somewhat dated site relating maps to life, the universe, and everything I’ve got a few dozen other map websites bookmarked, but that’ll do for now. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2018, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/83 "2018-07-22T20:42:30Z")
One of the things I do when using Google maps and street view is to try to find out something about any monuments or statues I find. Sometimes this is easy, other times it is a challenge, but I usually learn something new. I’ll do the same thing with street names that are obviously named after someone, try to find out who that person was and what they did. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2018, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/84 "2018-07-22T22:05:19Z")
Yes and yes. Not only did I love printed maps as a kid, I used to draw my own imaginary places using style and legends of maps I recently studied. At the time I did not read many books, but maps were like books to me. I like them so much, it helped me choose a major in college (Geography). My first few years out of school I worked in the startup digital map industry surveying cities for digital road maps used in the first car navigation systems, which was immensely satisfying. ---
**Author:** ![betterlifethroughchemistry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/betterlifethroughchemistry/32/3094_2.png) [@betterlifethroughchemistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betterlifethroughchemistry)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2018, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/85 "2018-07-22T22:05:33Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Who else is in the club? > mmm I’m absolutely in this club, when I was a kid, my parents subscribed to “NatGeo” and “Smithsonian”, l loved reading the articles and I collected the maps, as you said, I always wanted to know where places were… I collected so many over the years that Mrs. BLTC had a little intervention with me, basically she pointed out the boxes of maps need to go as they had this newfangled invention called “The Internet…” My favorite Google map points are Easter Island (on my bucket list) and Nikumaroro Island… ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2018, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/86 "2018-07-22T22:08:15Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > If any map lover ever visits New York City, take a tour of the public library. The map room there is interesting! And the tour is free. Yes! From 1981 to 1984, I was the youngest member of the New York Map Society – eleven to fourteen years old. The wonderful Alice Hudson was in charge of the library’s map collection, and was active in the group, which met up in the Museum of Natural History. Anyway, to answer the OP – yes. (Or does my username give it away?). Nearly every day, in professional and just-for-fun situations, and now when interacting with my seven-year-old son, I vacillate between _excitement/appreciation_ for the brave new world of digital, web-based, zoomable, endlessly personalized maps – and _despair/nostalgia_ for the diminished role of paper (and, less drastically, other “static” maps) in my life and in the world. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2018, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/87 "2018-07-22T22:11:46Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Awesome to peruse the responses! > > Quick show of hands: how many of you, like me, get a little thrill when you open a new book and discover that there are maps before the story starts? 😃 Count me in! **Mr. Downtown** , I look forward to our paths crossing at some point, if they haven’t already (a [NACIS](http://nacis.org/) meeting, perhaps?). ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2018, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/88 "2018-07-22T22:54:52Z")
I work with the people who make maps, in TDOT. And yes, I still do. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/89 "2018-07-23T04:13:52Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > When you guys travel, do you bring soft-maps offline, and if so, which ones? I like [maps.me](http://maps.me) when I’m traveling in places where I won’t have phone service. It uses OpenStreetMap data. Also, I like to have maps _other_ than Google Maps in places that don’t use the Roman alphabet. Google defaults to local spelling and usage. Typically, I’ll also have [Here.com](http://Here.com) and Google Maps for the area, but that’s a problem in Korea and Japan, which don’t allow downloading of particular map data. As I understand it, there are four and a half worldwide map databases: [ul] [li]I find **[Here.com](http://Here.com)** the most accurate on streetnames and navigation, at least for North America and Europe. Microsoft/Bing displays Here data.[/li][li] **TomTom** is probably second most accurate on auto navigation aspects. Services like ViaMichelin use TomTom data.[/li][li]I find **Google** has by far the most businesses, and is second most accurate generally.[/li][li] **OpenStreetMap** has made huge strides in the last decade, and now is quite good in much of North America and Europe, and not bad in big cities of Japan and Southeast Asia. Because it’s open-source, many websites now use OSM maps, especially through intermediate tile creators like MapBox. MapQuest, the original online map, now displays OSM data, as does Rand McNally’s online service.[/li][li] **Apple Maps** is the “half,” rapidly improving, but still reliant on TomTom and other providers for much data. Supposedly Apple has recently decided to rebuild Maps from the ground up.[/li][/ul] > [@](#): > > An offline soft topo map would be great to have, is there a good one? All the USGS topos are available for free download as GeoTIFFs or GeoPDFs through [Avenza’s Map Store.](https://www.avenzamaps.com/index.html) That store also offers specialized custom maps made by various vendors, for hikers, fishermen, hunters, boaters. Because they’re geo-aware, your phone or iPad GPS receiver can show you where you are on the map. I’m sure similar maps are available from other nations’ national mapping agencies. **JKellyMap,** I’m the guy who does Geodweeb Geopardy! at NACIS. Have we met? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/90 "2018-07-23T09:20:32Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > **JKellyMap,** I’m the guy who does Geodweeb Geopardy! at NACIS. Have we met? Ha! I’m not as deeply involved (nor as regular a participant) in NACIS as you are, but I’ve likely heard you present on some occasion. Anyway, thanks as always for the info in this thread — I’ll pass some of it on to my students. Back to the OP, I just spent a month in Malaysia. I did use a circa 2005 paper “road” map to get a synoptic sense of the geography (that is, a feel for how details fit into a big picture) — especially when in areas with slow cell phone reception — but it was falling apart and didn’t include newer highways, so I was using Google Maps or Open Street View on a smart phone most of the time. Paper maps are beautiful, but even I rarely use them nowadays (except as ubiquitous wall decorations). I do find myself MAKING little sketch maps pretty often. Not in a professional capacity — I just mean, say, before driving to a restaurant (or whatever) for the first time, often I’ll use Google Maps on a phone or laptop to locate it (and maybe let it choose the route), and draw a quick little sketch map on paper, and use THAT to drive to the place. For some reason I prefer this to simply being ordered to turn left or right by a GPS-enabled device. Maybe it’s because I enjoy the LEARNING a bit of geograohy that occurs when making a map, however simple or sketchy. ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/91 "2018-07-23T09:45:12Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > My favourite shop in the world is a three floor cartography shop in London called Stamfords. I could spend hours in there. Maps are amazing. And I especially love the seemingly countless maps of the London Underground. Stamfords even have a map on the floor! ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/92 "2018-07-23T14:45:07Z")
Great info in this fun thread! Wow, I now might only get lost about half as often as I used to! ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/93 "2018-07-23T14:49:30Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > So much that I became a cartographer. > > I often joke that we were the kids who would sneak _National Geographics_ into our bedrooms—not to study the unclothed natives, but to pore over the maps. > > I gave a talk back in January at the Chicago Map Society called “Beyond Google Maps,” to make them aware that there are quite a number of interesting or specialized worldwide (or at least national) map services on the web. [Here’s a page](http://chicagocarto.com/beyondgooglemaps.html) with links to the ones I talked about. I became a cartographer too. I’m not even always sure how I ended up here, but here I am none the less. You know know that I’m going to be wasting all day looking over those links right. > [@BigT](#): > > I went to a Montessori School, so we had these giant puzzle piece maps, and one thing you were allowed to do was trace them and color them in. I did that quite often. I even actually once made a full world map by tracing all the continents and taping stuff together. They weren’t perfectly to scale, but surprisingly close, once I used a smaller 8.5"x11" map of Europe. I also did the same with the US and Canada, so I’d have the states and provinces. One of my daughters did this, I have two of them hanging up in my office. I didn’t know they had stuff like this at their school until she brought them home one day. I currently make aeronautical charts, before that I made nautical charts. I’ve also made maps for insurance companies and fiber optic lines. I have a small collection of maps, almost all of Maryland. Some I’ve had framed and hung them on the walls. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/94 "2018-07-23T14:50:54Z")
Oh yeah, I was always the navigator on family trips. Love Google maps, now I pass the odd moments in the office by taking my trips on street view. ---
**Author:** ![Pabitel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbce88/32.png) [@Pabitel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pabitel)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/95 "2018-07-23T15:13:46Z")
I have always had a kind of fascination with discarded data. This started out with maps. Back when I was a kid Nat Geo was still a force to be reckoned with and most volumes had map inclusions. Many garage sales had boxes of old Nat Geos. I would go through the boxes and extract the maps and bring them home. At one point I had over 200 maps. Most from this source but also highways maps from any vacations we had taken, town maps, campus maps, etc. Later I turned my attention to vinyl, tapes, cds, etc. and started collecting those. But it all started with maps. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/96 "2018-07-23T15:18:39Z")
Yep, love maps and have for years. Even won a few geography awards in school. Goode’s Atlas was an early (and major purchase) as a 13 year old nerd. One map memory that sticks is how cool it was when my father photo-reduced USGS quad maps for our hunting trips. Rather than carrying large maps we had maps small enough to fit the license holders pinned to the back of our coats. Visitors to Seattle should not miss [http://www.metskers.com](http://www.metskers.com) ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/97 "2018-07-23T15:38:52Z")
Oh yeah. As a kid and now. We’ll I’m a GIS professional so it kind of goes along with the gig. 🙂 Found a great site with old Colorado maps. I plotted out an 1873 map of the State. Gonna get it framed. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/98 "2018-07-23T19:31:32Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Another map lover here. One of my favorite childhood memories was the arrival of the new National Geographic. I’d immediately grab the map, which kept me busy for at least a few hours. Same in my family, except there would be a fight over who got the map first. 3 of us kids, Mom was a geography teacher. The fights ended at the point where someone had to figure out how the damn map folded back together… usually my young sister got that job ---
**Author:** ![EscAlaMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/escalamike/32/4177_2.png) [@EscAlaMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EscAlaMike)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2018, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/99 "2018-07-23T19:44:18Z")
Yes, I have always loved maps and still do. I even have a collection of maps, albeit not a particularly impressive one. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2018, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320/100 "2018-07-24T13:33:51Z")
Dad made very, very sure to teach us kids about maps whenever he had an excuse; one of his frustrations with Ed was that Ed was Not Interested in Geography\*, without which you cannot understand History, and without History you cannot understand Current Reality (yeah, Dad’s rants included caps as needed). When he took out the road map and used it to plan our vacation, or a day trip, Jay and I would go over and he’d explain what he was doing, and what the colored lines were. He loved maps, but also, I finally understood why he’d rather have me navigating from the back seat than Mom from shotgun… the first time I had her trying to navigate for me. Oy vey. To the Nth. I don’t remember when exactly did I get my first Atlas, but one thing which was made clear was that this one was for ME. There was also Dad’s old, large, school Atlas, but that was delicate and not to be touched until I was older and bigger. Eventually I did get large enough to be able to reach it and take it off the shelf safely, at which point I spent hours poring over the differences between a late-40s edition and my mid-70s one. When the Baltic countries regained independence, Dad’s celebration was “HAH! my Atlas is back to being right!”; he took it down off the shelf and showed that map to my brothers, who at that point weren’t allowed to use it yet. And of course nowadays whenever I get a hook for a project, one of the first stops is Google maps 🙂 I also like spending time on housing listings and checking prices and types of construction against the map. - Guess which sibling eventually got a job which required him to learn a lot of complicated local geography. You SMART! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-spend-time-just-looking-at-maps-as-a-kid-anyone-else-still-do-it-as-an-adult/818320.md?page=6)