Coping With Your Topophilia (Travel Tips Part 3)

MAPS
The absolute best way to begin understanding where you are is to understand the map of where you are. Understanding the layout of a location allows you to start making meaningful connections between meaningful locations. True understanding (of anything) requires a grasp of context, and, in terms of traveling, what happens between destinations is the context. It is one thing to visit a particular point of interest. It is an entirely different and more fulfilling thing to understand why this point of interest is where it is and why, if it were somewhere else, it would be an entirely different thing.

There are two easy ways to familiarize yourself with the map of a new place.

• Every time you get back from visiting something, trace out your route on the map. Seeing where you actually went will give you a sense of distance and direction.
• Just stare at the map for a while. Look for anything that stands out as abnormal and figure out what it is. So much information can be gathered this way If the city is laid out on a grid, figure out the logic of that grid. What are the individual neighborhoods within the city (historic, academic, ethnic)?
  

Let’s use Manhattan as an example.
(Refer to this map while reading the rest of the article)

New York City is laid out on a grid of 800 ft. x 200 ft. blocks. But, as you can see, there are breaks in the system. Many of these exceptions to the system mark the most famous sights in NYC.

• The long diagonal street running across the island is Broadway. Aside from being the location for the most famous stage performances in the world, Broadway is also one of the streets that runs through Times Square. You’ll notice also that Broadway creates these strange triangle shaped blocks by cutting through the normal grid. These triangular lots are the locations for many interesting buildings including the very famous Flatiron Building.
• The massive rectangle of space with winding roads towards the top of the map is Central Park.
• Towards the bottom of the island, the grid goes haywire. Appropriately, this where you will find Wall Street. There are a lot of other interesting districts in that area as well, like The Meat Packing District, home of the puzzling High-Line Rail Road as well as trendy art studios and night life.
• East of Central Park, there is column of blocks, running north & south, that are half-sized. Those blocks are the location of the world’s most famous buildings: The Empire State Building, The Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, Tiffany’s and the Waldorf Astoria, just to name a few. Those roads running north & south through that area are the equally famous 5th Avenue, Madison Avenue, Park Avenue, and Lexington Avenue.

So you see, if you were to visit Manhattan by only studying the map, and visiting places where the grid was broken, you would see the most famous parts of the city, just like everyone else. But you would have discovered them, and you would have done so with an understanding of context and direction. Your heightened sense of place will heighten your experience.