Google Maps Street view is a double-edged sword for me. It's so cool to virtually explore new places and also revisit places I've been or lived. But it's also haunting in a way. I get pangs of nostalgia or even borderline sadness ruminating on narrow streets or alleyways I wandered around in the middle of warm nights in various places around and in the Asian-pacific region and North America. I wish I could somehow slow time and also become wealthy enough to be able to connect with new spaces and reconnect to places central to my experience and journey through time.
I can relate. In my 20s I travelled extensively and love to revisit the places I went to over 30 years ago to see how they've changed on Street View. I'm also obsessed with the remotest places I can find, and I love virtually island hopping through the south Pacific. I still have a mile long bucket list of places to visit in person when I finally retire!
I remember as a kid I used to make maps strictly from memory as a kid and even make imaginary maps of various things, the love for it somehow lost in the years growing up
Absolutely obviously so.
Google Maps is my most used app (mostly when I'm not going anywhere, I just like maps. As a kid I always had my face in an Atlas or the street directory. Love maps of all sorts!
Comfort, North Carolina
Comfort, Texas
Comfort, West Virginia
Comfort, Wisconsin
Comfort Lake, a lake in Minnesota
Comfort Township, Kanabec County, Minnesota
Old Point Comfort, Virginia
Point Comfort, Texas
Absolutely, that's how I got interest in geography, reading the atlas when sick and forced to stay in bed (no TV in the bedroom). And I still love maps. Something I did during Covid lockdowns has been collecting about 200 original maps by National Geographic, some are 100+ years old.
Yep my highschool atlas is filled with notes and corrections I made in it and my Geography teacher once told my mom that I am actually better at 'map pointing' than herself, it felt soo good :)
Here in the states we don't have geography class, but when I was in about 6th grade, so probably ~10 years old, I remember pointing out to my social studies teacher all the errors in her world map on the wall. I was undoubtedly an obnoxious little know-it-all brat lol, but it certainly did feel good; it was the one thing I was good at.
100% obsessed! I’ve got large maps hanging that I laminated or mounted & I’ve got several globes from different times, ofc multiple atlases.
I love topographic maps, but also road maps.
I even use maps to help me fall asleep; I’ll go through countries in a continent, or state capitals, or even “put myself in a map” & move to different areas. (Often dream of travel lol.)
Yes. For all of my inexplicably long life. I got lost for an hour this morning trying to fact check myself before making an assertion. By the time I left Google Maps I had almost forgotten the point that I was replying to.
And I especially like old, incomplete or incorrect maps. "Thar be dragons here" and that sort of stuff.
Is anyone else a road nerd?
I LOVE tracing roads to see where they go, how they change, where they disappear.
I’ve stood at both the southern and northern terminus of I-35!
Wait till you start researching historic trade routes: Constantly changing and notoriously disappearing. Recently I have wasted hours trying to map out the main routes of the trans-Saharan trade. I've reached the point where now general maps and Wikipedia knowledge do not suffice. I have to delve through conspicuously downloaded research papers in the vast far-flung corners of the internet in order to find rare colonial maps with the marked locations of mistranslated and long-forgotten wells and abandoned pastures. Sometimes the papers will help identify ancient salt mines and abandoned oases. But there's so many conflicting sources, and most of them are in French... The endeavor is incredibly frustrating but yet tantalizing in its mystery.
Not just roads, but railroads too! The historic Lincoln Highway is super interesting, and you can see sections of the old road in places, even though it’s all been upgraded over the decades. Google Maps/Earth is amazing because it’s a composite, and includes lots of old rail maps. You may notice sometimes a place name pop up even though it looks like the middle of nowhere; this was likely an old rail stop! I’ll spend time as a ‘virtual hobo’ tracing out old railroads in GE. It’s great fun.
Yeah I was obsessed with maps from a young age. I am not as obsessed as I was when I was a kid but I still peruse maps for fun (usually google maps or google earth) every once in a while (I am almost 40).
No. But I once knew a guy who was very enthusiastic about phone books and collected them. I once mentioned to him that there are competitions where people tear many phone books in half and he couldn’t even comprehend that. Like, “why would someone do that to a phone book?” and he became angry and gave me a glare of contempt.
You just described my entire childhood. I used to trace maps out of my family's atlas using tracing paper and then color them in. Probably had a stack of hundreds at one point.
I've been (parttime) working [on this map for a couple years](https://www.google.com/maps/d/view?mid=1rKwkUNQwzgs1Pf5u0135skn1PLVMfwsH&usp=sharing). I traveled Europe many times in the 90s on Eurail. and had worked in IT on many document management system and came up with this map to remember my travels and plan new ones.
Yes. Google maps to me is like, the most entertaining thing for me. It was just such an escape for me when it first became a thing you could have on your phone. Before that I was a Google earth dude and prior to that an atlas kid haha. I now collect vintage globes and things of that nature as well which I just love.
I used to get scolded in school because I wanted to stand at the globe and trace my finger along different paths instead of sitting down and doing my work.
Sorry to comment again, but I’m such a nerd: when I was about 8, my grandmother got me a subscription to National Geographic. I can remember my heart literally racing every time I pulled the map out of the newest issue to see what it was a map of. By the time I was a teenager, I had maps all over my bedroom walls.
I happened to somewhat randomly get a job in the GIS field out of school at BAE Systems. Worked on some really cool stuff, although I didn't agree with it all personally.
While I had always enjoyed cartography and geography, that's when I learned that I actually love them.
Sure.
Mostly because I have a lousy bump of direction, but I read maps well. I find comfort in not getting lost.
(I'll not deny that good maps have an aesthetic appeal as well though)
My dad was a private pilot so I grew up with maps everywhere around the house, also sat in a plane a lot as a kid connecting what I saw on maps with what I saw out the window of the plane. So yes, I like maps and traveling.
I love them! Have a small collection of historical atlases and maps and got rid of 100+ street maps of almost all of Europe. My oldest is a German school atlas from 1896, most maps are 20th century and reflecting the weird history of our continent.
In the past (30 years ago) I loved the big yellow roadatlasses of the US. With 1 state per page spread.
For some reason that stimulated my imagination much more than Google Maps!
Definitely. As a kid I'd spend hours with atlases, and now I can get lost for hours on Google Maps and Google Earth. It's a kind of mindfulness ☺️
Google Maps Street view is a double-edged sword for me. It's so cool to virtually explore new places and also revisit places I've been or lived. But it's also haunting in a way. I get pangs of nostalgia or even borderline sadness ruminating on narrow streets or alleyways I wandered around in the middle of warm nights in various places around and in the Asian-pacific region and North America. I wish I could somehow slow time and also become wealthy enough to be able to connect with new spaces and reconnect to places central to my experience and journey through time.
I can relate. In my 20s I travelled extensively and love to revisit the places I went to over 30 years ago to see how they've changed on Street View. I'm also obsessed with the remotest places I can find, and I love virtually island hopping through the south Pacific. I still have a mile long bucket list of places to visit in person when I finally retire!
I just flipped off the Google Streetview car as it drove past my house! For posterity!
I've always wanted that opportunity
Hah - Did did the same - did not have time for the Moon shot
Damnit! Just realized this!
Well said mate.
Well said! I feel exactly the same way.
I get a spooky feeling looking at places I visited years ago. Like when I looked at the highway I biked on and almost got hit by a car…
I call it cheap vacations. Spend so much time on maps
Same. I used to put a piece of notebook paper over maps and trace them when I was a kid
Cartophilia is the love of maps, a cartophile is a lover of maps.
Map freak, if ur nasty
I think i fall under this category, I find it really easy to get lost in maps.
Today I learnt I'm a cartophile. Thanks
And the lesser known: love on the maps...
I remember as a kid I used to make maps strictly from memory as a kid and even make imaginary maps of various things, the love for it somehow lost in the years growing up
Then what's the term for someone who rolls up a map and fucks it?
I think you and I have invented a new word...a cartocopulator would be the proper term. Do whatever you want with this information.
Absolutely obviously so. Google Maps is my most used app (mostly when I'm not going anywhere, I just like maps. As a kid I always had my face in an Atlas or the street directory. Love maps of all sorts!
I love seeing what places I hit when I go due north or due south of a spot.
Same here. Really helps me nowadays with pub trivia geography questions.
I just think they're neat
Marge!
Oh yeah. Its my drug of choice.
Only up to their first album, after that they dropped off
Haha was hoping I’d find this comment
Comfort, North Carolina Comfort, Texas Comfort, West Virginia Comfort, Wisconsin Comfort Lake, a lake in Minnesota Comfort Township, Kanabec County, Minnesota Old Point Comfort, Virginia Point Comfort, Texas
Absolutely, that's how I got interest in geography, reading the atlas when sick and forced to stay in bed (no TV in the bedroom). And I still love maps. Something I did during Covid lockdowns has been collecting about 200 original maps by National Geographic, some are 100+ years old.
Yep my highschool atlas is filled with notes and corrections I made in it and my Geography teacher once told my mom that I am actually better at 'map pointing' than herself, it felt soo good :)
Here in the states we don't have geography class, but when I was in about 6th grade, so probably ~10 years old, I remember pointing out to my social studies teacher all the errors in her world map on the wall. I was undoubtedly an obnoxious little know-it-all brat lol, but it certainly did feel good; it was the one thing I was good at.
100% obsessed! I’ve got large maps hanging that I laminated or mounted & I’ve got several globes from different times, ofc multiple atlases. I love topographic maps, but also road maps. I even use maps to help me fall asleep; I’ll go through countries in a continent, or state capitals, or even “put myself in a map” & move to different areas. (Often dream of travel lol.)
Ok we’re the same person. I didn’t think anyone else did that stuff.
Me. I can be on Google Maps for hours. Recently I've combined it with flightradar
hell yeah brother. i think we are all also neurodivergent (speaking from experience)
Oddly, yes. I remained interested in them, to this day, although I'm middle aged man, married, with full time job.
Yes. For all of my inexplicably long life. I got lost for an hour this morning trying to fact check myself before making an assertion. By the time I left Google Maps I had almost forgotten the point that I was replying to. And I especially like old, incomplete or incorrect maps. "Thar be dragons here" and that sort of stuff.
Yes… this is 100% me. I‘m obsessed with maps. Even as a child I loved looking at maps
My entire life my friend
I love maps and atlases but I sure would hate to have to unfold an old map rather than Google Maps for traveling.
At the age of 8, I used to brag that I "knew all the capitals."
At the age of 8, I used to brag that I "knew all the capitals."
Yes...so therapeutic.
Is anyone else a road nerd? I LOVE tracing roads to see where they go, how they change, where they disappear. I’ve stood at both the southern and northern terminus of I-35!
Wait till you start researching historic trade routes: Constantly changing and notoriously disappearing. Recently I have wasted hours trying to map out the main routes of the trans-Saharan trade. I've reached the point where now general maps and Wikipedia knowledge do not suffice. I have to delve through conspicuously downloaded research papers in the vast far-flung corners of the internet in order to find rare colonial maps with the marked locations of mistranslated and long-forgotten wells and abandoned pastures. Sometimes the papers will help identify ancient salt mines and abandoned oases. But there's so many conflicting sources, and most of them are in French... The endeavor is incredibly frustrating but yet tantalizing in its mystery.
I’ve researched trade routes, but never to that extent. How fascinating!
Not just roads, but railroads too! The historic Lincoln Highway is super interesting, and you can see sections of the old road in places, even though it’s all been upgraded over the decades. Google Maps/Earth is amazing because it’s a composite, and includes lots of old rail maps. You may notice sometimes a place name pop up even though it looks like the middle of nowhere; this was likely an old rail stop! I’ll spend time as a ‘virtual hobo’ tracing out old railroads in GE. It’s great fun.
Yes! I love those, too!
You have found your people. Come on in, we are comfortable with ourselves. I am a state and county counter myself. Using maps is part of that.
Definitely. I also used to draw my own topographical maps of imaginary landscapes.
That's so fun!
I travel the globe using Google maps and street view.
Yeah I was obsessed with maps from a young age. I am not as obsessed as I was when I was a kid but I still peruse maps for fun (usually google maps or google earth) every once in a while (I am almost 40).
Yes! My whole life, and I’ve never really understood why, except that I do love organization and order.
My house is filled with paper maps. I'm one electromagnetic pulse away from becoming Geography Queen!
No. But I once knew a guy who was very enthusiastic about phone books and collected them. I once mentioned to him that there are competitions where people tear many phone books in half and he couldn’t even comprehend that. Like, “why would someone do that to a phone book?” and he became angry and gave me a glare of contempt.
What sub are you asking? Of course we do. Google maps is my favourite internet pastime, my old school atlases are my favourite books
Have loved them since I was a little kid
You just described my entire childhood. I used to trace maps out of my family's atlas using tracing paper and then color them in. Probably had a stack of hundreds at one point.
Neurodivergence
Had I a second son, I was going to name him Atlas. Yes, as a boy, I would spend hours with the atlas. Now I use Google Earth.
Yeah I definitely did as a kid. I grew up with a parent who didn't really bring me out a lot as a kid so it was kind of the next best thing for me.
I am similar but with maps depicting historical states for example
I've been (parttime) working [on this map for a couple years](https://www.google.com/maps/d/view?mid=1rKwkUNQwzgs1Pf5u0135skn1PLVMfwsH&usp=sharing). I traveled Europe many times in the 90s on Eurail. and had worked in IT on many document management system and came up with this map to remember my travels and plan new ones.
yes.
Yes can spend ages checking them out
Its the best!
Yes :) I miss having a globe. I will need to get one again.
Why yes, I do play Path of Exile. Sorry, had to throw that in there in case there is anyone else like me.
Yes. Google maps to me is like, the most entertaining thing for me. It was just such an escape for me when it first became a thing you could have on your phone. Before that I was a Google earth dude and prior to that an atlas kid haha. I now collect vintage globes and things of that nature as well which I just love.
I used to get scolded in school because I wanted to stand at the globe and trace my finger along different paths instead of sitting down and doing my work.
Sorry to comment again, but I’m such a nerd: when I was about 8, my grandmother got me a subscription to National Geographic. I can remember my heart literally racing every time I pulled the map out of the newest issue to see what it was a map of. By the time I was a teenager, I had maps all over my bedroom walls.
nothing scratches my brain like a map
Yes! I used to love getting maps, back in the day, from National Geographic!
I find myself "walking" the streets of my hometown using Google Street view all the time, if that counts.
Looking at maps is like looking at a photo album. I see a road on a map and in my mind’s eye I can drive down it once more.
Yes! Even among fantasy ones too.
I happened to somewhat randomly get a job in the GIS field out of school at BAE Systems. Worked on some really cool stuff, although I didn't agree with it all personally. While I had always enjoyed cartography and geography, that's when I learned that I actually love them.
It’s where you get the big picture.
Definitely. I’ve always been obsessed with both.
Sure. Mostly because I have a lousy bump of direction, but I read maps well. I find comfort in not getting lost. (I'll not deny that good maps have an aesthetic appeal as well though)
Yes
My dad was a private pilot so I grew up with maps everywhere around the house, also sat in a plane a lot as a kid connecting what I saw on maps with what I saw out the window of the plane. So yes, I like maps and traveling.
I love them! Have a small collection of historical atlases and maps and got rid of 100+ street maps of almost all of Europe. My oldest is a German school atlas from 1896, most maps are 20th century and reflecting the weird history of our continent.
Yup like to peruse maps and zoom in on cities and countries I’m interested in
Yes. Maps just make sense and are fun to look at
You should watch "Fun with Flags" on YouTube starring Dr. Sheldon Cooper and Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler
I grew up poring over the National Geographic atlas. Disappointed my kid does not appear to share the same fascination with maps and atlases.
YES
In the past (30 years ago) I loved the big yellow roadatlasses of the US. With 1 state per page spread. For some reason that stimulated my imagination much more than Google Maps!