Geography Lends A Helping Hand 

What school subjects that you’ve studied have served you best in travel? 

“There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines of our lives. “(Josephine Hart)

With no hesitation, I can wholeheartedly state that my lifelong interest in the subject of geography has satisfied my travel interests best both near and far. In this regard , I might say that geography matches up well with my restlessly curious nature to know facts about different neighborhoods, cities, countries, and continents on our earth in terms of the varied natural landscapes of air, land and, sea that comprise each of them.

Know then that my travel thirst for geography began during my childhood in the Cleveland, Ohio region, when my dedicated elementary school teachers encouraged students to embrace the changing seasons of nearby parks and fields  and simply explore. From 5th grade onwards, I then began to enjoy building rock piles sorted by color, shape, and surface texture. I’d also sit on the itchy grass alot and free sketch cloud formations above, being totally absorbed in deep thought about what made them magically float in the air. When I plopped down on a shaded spot under an elm or oak tree,  I’d often dig up surrounding soil as well to examine their life bearing features as  plenty of earthworms squiggled throughout the muddy mess to confirm such interest. 

With some regrets, I can also recall that during my junior and senior high school years living now in South Florida, my Social Studies teachers infrequently incorporated geography in their class instruction. So I compensated for such formal geography lacking by spending an inordinate amount of time self teaching myself this subject in library reference sections by perusing World Almanacs, Encyclopedia Brittanica sets and National Geographic magazines. Such research I realize in retrospect had served me well for my future travel ambitions. For I could then recall geographic features of every U.S. state, their capitol city names as well as plot locations of most countries, water bodies, and mountain ranges on a world map.

Thus I seemed primed to capitalize on such precocious geographic abilities as I eagerly completed rigorous, credit seeking courses in physical, world, and urban geography during my Bachelors and Masters University programs  in Social Science/Urban Studies Education. Notably at that time as well, I’d met my future wife Ruth during that time who’d already traveled to Israel and  throughout Europe in her teens.  With both of us destined  for long careers in the teaching profession, our marriage would thus logically fulfill a mutual, geographic fantasy as we’d be fortunate to travel independently without the burden of raising children for several months during summer vacation each year. Such a wandering lifestyle  would continue on into our early retirement years. 

So in today’s times, this confirmed nomad continues his thirst for geography surrounded by a multitude of travel based apps convenient for planning and executing our current focus on road tripping. For day to day “GPS” walks or drives, he relies on “Google Maps.” In planning more long term itineraries within time limits, he benefits most by “Roadtrippers” or “Maps.Me” To schedule suitable lodging within range of places of interest, he makes good use of “Choice Hotel” maps via “Trip Advisor.” If unexpected weather conditions call for urgent attention, “The Weather Channel” does best. Take a look then a a few examples of how these apps might be of help throughout various portions of our upcoming Colorado road trip in the photo set below.