A confession.

I like maps. The old Michelin type ones.  I like to see a country laid out on a table and figure out a route or an itinerary imagining I’m looking at it from way up high.  Once I’ve done this I can plug in modern technology and figure out times, look at Google maps but…always start with a map. 

I like the accordion fold and the intimacy it gives me to see a whole country and figure out distances with mountains and coastal areas.  A further confession, I like globes.  Just to imagine the complexity of our planet.  Our 7 continents and 5 oceans.  196 countries floating around in the solar system.  I imagine Magellan in 1520 setting off to circumnavigate the world.  Seville to Seville. 

The job finished by Elgano.  A giant circle following imaginary lines of latitude literary traveling where no person traveled before.  I love maps because they take me back like a time traveler to a time when people had to use the stars and basic cartography.  I love to imagine the jigsaw of Pangia.  But above all I just love the accordion fold of a beautiful map.  Travel is a wonder!