Day 5 – Armchair Traveling through Maps

 

Armchair traveling using maps and following mapmakers is the perfect way to explore a country or place, event or battlefield, real or imaginary. In essence, maps are “visual” travelogues, the perfect way to travel while in your armchair.

 

Books of maps and maps in the fronts of books show the reader where places are for their future journeys. They also allow us to follow someone else’s journey while reading in place.

 

I pulled a few books of maps and mapmakers from my shelves to refresh my experience of traveling via maps. 

 

I’m going to start with mapmakers, those cartographers and surveyors who traveled through unknown lands and set boundaries onto paper.

 

John Noble Wilford’s “The Mapmakers,” originally published in 1981 with the subtitle “The Story of Great Pioneers in Cartography from Antiquity to the Space Age” is a classic book of vignettes about “great pioneers and adventurers, mapmakers” who “expanded our knowledge of the world around us.” Within the thick volume, you’ll explore the world with Chinese cartographers, Christopher Columbus, Magellan, and even Lewis and Clark. Exploring my shelves, I realize I have multiple copies of this lovely book, the hardcover containing much clearer maps. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6053648-the-mapmakers

 

Another book about mapmakers is “Measuring America: How an Untamed Wilderness Shaped the United States and Fulfilled the Promise of Democracy” by Andro Linkletter https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/498349.Measuring_America This book looks at how American surveyors, under Congress’ direction, figured out how to measure land, divide it up for sale, and help fund the Revolutionary War debt. There’s lots of discussion of the political debate. Better yet, there are maps and images of the surveyors who were instrumental during the early period of exploration of the American continent.

 

While not quite a book of maps, Simon Winchester’s “the Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/921954.The_Map_that_Changed_the_World takes readers on a journey through the folds of the earth and the ups and downs of Great Britain’s landscape as Smith’s map shows “the hidden underside of England.” There’s nothing like a journey through canals, coal mines, archaeological digs, and rural terrain to help readers travel while in their armchairs.

 

Jeff Shaara’s “Civil War Battlefields: Discovering America’s Hallowed Ground” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/101650.Civil_War_Battlefields takes readers on a journey to and through the many battlefields and troop movements of the Civil War. It’s a slim volume replete with maps, photographs and drawings of the numerous battlefields scattered throughout the East, South, and West of continental United States. Take this book on a journey through the Civil War or just learn about the countryside, as the master of historical fiction about US wars tells you about those fateful days and nights. 

 

My shelves are full of books of maps, many atlases, and more books about travel through maps than I can believe.

 

 

Just to put your mind at ease, I do travel with paper maps of the states and towns I'm planning to visit on any road trip. I study the maps first, find those lovely blue highways and byways I wrote about yesterday, and then hit the road. Thanks to my AAA membership, I happily stock up with current maps and guidebooks to explore and read before, during, and after I hit the road.

 

 Tomorrow, Day 6, we’ll do some armchair traveling through imaginary lands with imaginary people.