Geography, weather, perception and confusion (cycle, bring, maps, England)
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I was just talking to a colleague who is going to be visiting her daughter in the summer. Daughter lives in Delaware near a resort town on the ocean. Colleague is in California. I have lived all over the mid Atlantic and the colleague was asking me questions about visiting namely if she would need to bring a coat in because it gets cold there (not in July...). The more I talked to her the more I realized she thought Delaware was near Boston or at least that New England and the mid Atlantic were all basically the same place. This is not a poorly educated woman... she has a doctorate. . but she really had no clue about seasonal temps or geographic location.
I recall the first time I went to El Paso and how shocked I was that Austin was so far away as it was my only other reference point in Texas. I do think that where you are used to informs your idea of what sort of scale and climate other places will have. Anyone experience this sort of confusion when they travel or had others ask questions of this sort?
I think that even for well-travelled and well-educated people, we don't always know exactly how far apart certain places are. I consider myself reasonably well travelled, and this weekend I met my wife's cousin from Melbourne, Australia at a wedding here in New York. I knew that Melbourne was in southern Australia, but (falsely) assumed that it was just a few hours' drive from Sydney. I was very surprised to learn that the two cities are nearly 600 miles apart.
I have to double check Google Maps all the time. A rule of thumb is that D.C. can be up to 10 degrees warmer than NYC with 5-10% additional humidity and ATL/Charlotte will be 15-20 degrees warmer AND add 10-15% humidity.
I made the same mistake in thinking that Sacramento was anywhere near LA and that it had the same climate (It does NOT AT ALL....)
Unless you live in the region you really don't know off the top of your head.
My experience suggests that a shockingly large number of people know practically nothing about geography. At all.
Agreed that people (even geographically savvy folks) often have significant misconceptions of how far places are from each other, in particular how long it takes to travel between cities.
My experience suggests that a shockingly large number of people know practically nothing about geography. At all.
I totally agree Bach. I told a co-worker a couple of years ago that I was planning to visit Oregon that summer, and she repeatedly confused it with Ohio. They both start with the letter "O" but otherwise are 2500 miles apart and have virtually nothing in common.
Another time we were playing Trivial Pursuit with my cousin, who is an idiot. The question asked by what means can one travel the most quickly from California to Hawaii. Her guess: bicycle. I wish I were kidding.
I was just talking to a colleague who is going to be visiting her daughter in the summer. Daughter lives in Delaware near a resort town on the ocean. Colleague is in California. I have lived all over the mid Atlantic and the colleague was asking me questions about visiting namely if she would need to bring a coat in because it gets cold there (not in July...). The more I talked to her the more I realized she thought Delaware was near Boston or at least that New England and the mid Atlantic were all basically the same place. This is not a poorly educated woman... she has a doctorate. . but she really had no clue about seasonal temps or geographic location.
I recall the first time I went to El Paso and how shocked I was that Austin was so far away as it was my only other reference point in Texas. I do think that where you are used to informs your idea of what sort of scale and climate other places will have. Anyone experience this sort of confusion when they travel or had others ask questions of this sort?
Besides the quality of the American Education System regarding geography (even for a "well educated woman") things simply look smaller on a map, or people don't realize how big a state like texas is. My company has an office in Charlotte, I live near Memphis. They think the next state over and say "hey just drive over for an afternoon". Charlotte is 620 driving miles away.
People are in the MS forum here asking 'What's the weather like in Mississippi". This state stretches from the humid and steamy Gulf Coast to virtually the mid-west. Chicago is not much farther from me than Biloxi. We always have to remind them - what region?
You see it all the time on the General US Forum. There are way too many topics along the lines of "Are the people in so-an-so-state more southern/northern/western/eastern than in some other state." There are so many reasons those are stupid questions, and one is that many states have cities that are not only completely different in personality, they're also hundreds of miles apart. For example, I live in Virginia, and we recently drove more than 500 miles to go from the DC metro to Big Stone Gap. The idea that it must be an easy drive just because "it's all in Virginia" or that either of these areas represent "everyone in Virginia" just because they're in the same state, is pretty dumb. But a lot of people make assumptions like that. I finally had to stop reading that forum because I just saw too much of that.
Last edited by Piney Creek; 04-03-2019 at 08:22 AM..
You see it all the time on the General US Forum. There are way too many topics along the lines of "Are the people in so-an-so-state more southern/northern/western/eastern than in some other state." There are so many reasons those are stupid questions, and one is that many states have cities that are not only completely different in personality, they're also hundreds of miles apart. For example, I live in Virginia, and we recently drove more than 500 miles to go from the DC metro to Big Stone Gap. The idea that it must be an easy drive just because "it's all in Virginia" or that either of these areas represent "everyone in Virginia" just because they're in the same state, is pretty dumb. But a lot of people make assumptions like that. I finally had to stop reading that forum because I just saw too much of that.
Totally agree. Some people in the NYC area seem to very much have this mentality, especially those who aren't avid travelers. But it's incredibly stupid, because New York State is pretty large and it's a 400 mile drive from NYC to Niagara Falls, and the two regions are hugely different. Ditto for NYC versus the Adirondacks or Finger Lakes Region etc. Heck, I live in the northern suburbs of NYC (Westchester County) and going to Montauk seems like a whole different world.
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