You've given me an idea - thank you! I wonder how travel writing will change with Google Maps etc now showing us the way? I find them so... contextual-less. Without poetry. Resonance. Spoken instructions down a Sat Nav on a road trip -- they are so deadening... So different to journeying with a paper map, don't you think? Or maybe not. I need to think about this idea, of what digital mapping is doing to the human imagination.
Glad to hear I've given you an idea, Sophy ! Traveling with Google Maps or other GPS systems definitely changed the way we get from A to B. I'll put it on simply when I don't want to think about navigating, even if I know the way, and of course to get traffic alerts (which aren't fool proof). I'm not sure how it has or will affect travel writing--that would be your field. I just feel that following Google Maps is a similar tunnel experience to reading online. You're going down a rabbit hole, following connections that someone else made, versus when you read a newspaper, for example, something will pique your interest out of left field because it catches your eye but you weren't looking for it. This is more enriching, I think. Before I travel, I study maps basically for what I don't know I'm looking for (except for rest stops on highways :-)
And thanks, too, for making the first comment Annette! I'm quietly trying my hand at this Substack thing... It's interesting. More space for nuance than Instagram, which I have used for years.
Welcome to Substack, Sophy! For now I have found it to be a good ecosystem for writers. And don't join quietly, toot your horn! Also, BTW, since you're new, if someone comments on your posts, hit reply under their comment. That way they get alerted that you reacted and the conversation or mutual appreciation keeps going.
Loved this post and a great initial entry into Substack -- I'm looking forward to more! Always love reading your work.
I love maps too. I remember when I was around 12 years old at a sleep over with my best friend, we studied the huge world map on her wall and made up a fantastical adventure story using the funniest and most bizarre names we could find. Our characters were called Pingwoo and Orkney and our spaceship was the Kalaalit Nunaat. I never dreamed, sitting in that mobile home in rural Pennsylvania, that one day I might actually see some of those places with my own eyes. But nearly a quarter-century later I stood in front of the Standing Stones of Stenness on the island of Orkney and it felt like I had closed a loop in my own destiny.
Later that same year a transatlantic flight took me over the austere mass of ice and rock of Greenland -- called Kalaallit Nunaat in the local language.
Welcome to Substack, Sophy - I'm looking forward to travelling along with you.
I too love maps. I worked as an archaeologist for a while and often had to spend time looking at historical maps. So many wonderful place names. Being somewhat much longer in the tooth than many of my colleagues, we would 'clash' over what version of modern map to take on survey with us. They wanted the tablet, me the paper version. But you can't spread the tablet out on the car bonnet, I would wail. We would compromise; they carried the tablet while I took my precious paper version. It always made me smirk if we had to revert to the paper version because the tablet lost signal.
The maps in A Training School for Elephants are gorgeous - they really added to the book.
And that you for the references in your piece - I shall follow them up 🙂
Maps - older paper maps - have a way of drawing you in, with faint promises and subtle invitations. Then leaving us to discover the wonders in the cavernous gaps littered across the page. I feel that mystery is being somewhat eroded by satellite maps and Google.
I love your podcast! It is so magical: the people, your questions, their life experiences and curiosities; and of course your podcast interviews have added some books to my toppling stacks… How lovely you have a substack place as well.
Excellent piece. I fully agree and I also start all new projects with a map. Maps in books are also great, just finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time and Tolkien’s maps are brilliant.
I recieved A Training School for Elephants and The Lost Pianos of Siberia and have been looking at the maps this morning, which are beautiful. I just can’t decide which one to start on!
So pleased to see you posting here Sophy! Most of my childhood travels involved the maps in the first few pages of fantasy novels. I always knew I was in for a treat when books came with a map. I loved the names of places and wondered what was beyond the drawn map.
Somewhat related: I'm part of a personal knowledge management (PKM) community and we like to create what we call Maps of Content. It involves some freewriting and clustering thoughts and concepts together etc. Maps of Content have been a valuable artifact for thinking, where I am able to spot connections or gaps. Sometimes these maps split off into mini-maps or collect into a higher-order map. It reminded me a bit about how you describe your serial killer maps 😁
The atlas was my escape from road fatigue during childhood family vacations. I loved studying the journey on those pages as we motored along the highways and country roads. Look forward to your posts.
Thanks for the Robert Louis Stevenson references! They're so interesting, I'll follow that trail. Plus I loved Treasure Island, read it in a day.
Incidentally, today I delighted in the arrival of my new Rand McNally road atlas. I missed having a road atlas along on my recent cross-country drive. The RandMcNally shows reststops on highways, which Google Maps is really bad at. Plus I just love studying maps. I've already got my nose in my new atlas to see what state parks or museums might be on the way of an upcoming drive to Lake Superior.
You've given me an idea - thank you! I wonder how travel writing will change with Google Maps etc now showing us the way? I find them so... contextual-less. Without poetry. Resonance. Spoken instructions down a Sat Nav on a road trip -- they are so deadening... So different to journeying with a paper map, don't you think? Or maybe not. I need to think about this idea, of what digital mapping is doing to the human imagination.
We weite about this very thing from time to time, Sophy
Glad to hear I've given you an idea, Sophy ! Traveling with Google Maps or other GPS systems definitely changed the way we get from A to B. I'll put it on simply when I don't want to think about navigating, even if I know the way, and of course to get traffic alerts (which aren't fool proof). I'm not sure how it has or will affect travel writing--that would be your field. I just feel that following Google Maps is a similar tunnel experience to reading online. You're going down a rabbit hole, following connections that someone else made, versus when you read a newspaper, for example, something will pique your interest out of left field because it catches your eye but you weren't looking for it. This is more enriching, I think. Before I travel, I study maps basically for what I don't know I'm looking for (except for rest stops on highways :-)
And thanks, too, for making the first comment Annette! I'm quietly trying my hand at this Substack thing... It's interesting. More space for nuance than Instagram, which I have used for years.
Welcome to Substack, Sophy! For now I have found it to be a good ecosystem for writers. And don't join quietly, toot your horn! Also, BTW, since you're new, if someone comments on your posts, hit reply under their comment. That way they get alerted that you reacted and the conversation or mutual appreciation keeps going.
Okay - now I've learnt to reply correctly!!! Forever grateful. One digital babystep at a time!!!!
Yep, slowly, slowly!
Loved this post and a great initial entry into Substack -- I'm looking forward to more! Always love reading your work.
I love maps too. I remember when I was around 12 years old at a sleep over with my best friend, we studied the huge world map on her wall and made up a fantastical adventure story using the funniest and most bizarre names we could find. Our characters were called Pingwoo and Orkney and our spaceship was the Kalaalit Nunaat. I never dreamed, sitting in that mobile home in rural Pennsylvania, that one day I might actually see some of those places with my own eyes. But nearly a quarter-century later I stood in front of the Standing Stones of Stenness on the island of Orkney and it felt like I had closed a loop in my own destiny.
Later that same year a transatlantic flight took me over the austere mass of ice and rock of Greenland -- called Kalaallit Nunaat in the local language.
Welcome to Substack, Sophy - I'm looking forward to travelling along with you.
I too love maps. I worked as an archaeologist for a while and often had to spend time looking at historical maps. So many wonderful place names. Being somewhat much longer in the tooth than many of my colleagues, we would 'clash' over what version of modern map to take on survey with us. They wanted the tablet, me the paper version. But you can't spread the tablet out on the car bonnet, I would wail. We would compromise; they carried the tablet while I took my precious paper version. It always made me smirk if we had to revert to the paper version because the tablet lost signal.
The maps in A Training School for Elephants are gorgeous - they really added to the book.
And that you for the references in your piece - I shall follow them up 🙂
Maps - older paper maps - have a way of drawing you in, with faint promises and subtle invitations. Then leaving us to discover the wonders in the cavernous gaps littered across the page. I feel that mystery is being somewhat eroded by satellite maps and Google.
I love your podcast! It is so magical: the people, your questions, their life experiences and curiosities; and of course your podcast interviews have added some books to my toppling stacks… How lovely you have a substack place as well.
Excellent piece. I fully agree and I also start all new projects with a map. Maps in books are also great, just finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time and Tolkien’s maps are brilliant.
I recieved A Training School for Elephants and The Lost Pianos of Siberia and have been looking at the maps this morning, which are beautiful. I just can’t decide which one to start on!
Keep up the great work Sophy Roberts!
So pleased to see you posting here Sophy! Most of my childhood travels involved the maps in the first few pages of fantasy novels. I always knew I was in for a treat when books came with a map. I loved the names of places and wondered what was beyond the drawn map.
Somewhat related: I'm part of a personal knowledge management (PKM) community and we like to create what we call Maps of Content. It involves some freewriting and clustering thoughts and concepts together etc. Maps of Content have been a valuable artifact for thinking, where I am able to spot connections or gaps. Sometimes these maps split off into mini-maps or collect into a higher-order map. It reminded me a bit about how you describe your serial killer maps 😁
The atlas was my escape from road fatigue during childhood family vacations. I loved studying the journey on those pages as we motored along the highways and country roads. Look forward to your posts.
This was fascinating, thanks!
Thanks for the Robert Louis Stevenson references! They're so interesting, I'll follow that trail. Plus I loved Treasure Island, read it in a day.
Incidentally, today I delighted in the arrival of my new Rand McNally road atlas. I missed having a road atlas along on my recent cross-country drive. The RandMcNally shows reststops on highways, which Google Maps is really bad at. Plus I just love studying maps. I've already got my nose in my new atlas to see what state parks or museums might be on the way of an upcoming drive to Lake Superior.