ABSTRACT
This book reports on a series of exploratory excursions, not a set, familiar journey to a familiar destination. It is also a report on those adventures to a presumed audience of map makers, fellow adventurers, and the curious ones who read travel magazines for their sense of cultural geography. On these excursions I have discovered maps of others which helped me to move past the nearby horizon and to locate myself in a larger terrain. Sometimes I was able to lay one map upon another with interesting results. Although the maps did not coincide in every dimension, I was able to see the terrain in greater detail and complexity, as would the placing of a map depicting annual rainfall over a map showing mountains, rivers, and farmlands over a map showing industrial centers. Having returned from these explorations, I think I am better able to discuss with other travelers what the things they might encounter along the way might mean, or how they could use a particular map to see things they would miss using a different map. I can also speak to my fellow travel consultants about my excursions. It taught me some new perspectives which our national association of travel consultants were neglecting in their continuing education seminars and training and certification programs. That about sums up what I am trying to do in this book.
