I just posted a new episode on the Natural Curiosity Project called “Fun with Geography.” It’s sort of an homage to my favorite TV show, the Big Bang Theory. You may recall that a recurring theme was a Web TV show produced by Sheldon Cooper and his then-girlfriend Amy Farrah-Fowler called “Fun with Flags.” It was silly, of course, but it was also interesting in a lot of ways. My own mini-obsession with geography isn’t all that different.

I love maps–I always have. I can sit for hours with a map. just following roads to see where they go, looking for the funniest place names (the subject of an earlier Podcast episode), identifying unusual landforms, and so on. I love the fact that if you follow the major north-bound roads in Canada all the way up, they ultimately just…stop. They peter out. They end. I want to go there. I want to stand at the end of the road and wonder, “Why here?”

Early maps, those produced prior to the 15th century or so, had vast unknown areas that were often drawn showing them to be the homes of fantastic beasts. I don’t know about the fantastic beasts, but there are still places that are largely unknown–not as many as there used to be, but enough of them still exist to tantalize.

When I was in college, I found myself puzzled by friends who were getting degrees in geography, the same way I found it odd that there was a degree in library science. At the time they both seemed silly to me–the sort of “underwater basket weaving” majors that people used to joke about. Today, I can’t think of two fields of study more useful and applicable than these.

It was Mark Twain who wrote, “Travel is fatal to bigotry, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness, and most of our people need it sorely on al three counts.” Well, spending time with maps, taking the time to study a bit of geography, is a noble snd useful pursuit. Just listen to this new episode and you’ll see what I mean.

You can find the episode on Soundcloud or on all the standard Podcast platforms.