Overheard a guy at the antique mall say my map collection was 'all tourist traps'

I was digging through a bin of old road maps at a booth in Portland last weekend. This older dude walks by, glances at my stack, and goes 'You know those are all just tourist maps, right? Nothing real there.' Then he walks off like he dropped some huge truth bomb. It got me thinking - half my collection is literally maps from gas stations and visitor centers. Is that a bad thing? They show weird stuff like 'World's Largest Ball of Twine' or 'Scenic Overlook That's Actually Just a Ditch'. That feels realer to me than some fancy cartographer's version. Anyone else mainly collect those kind of maps?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_piper14d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, isn't the whole point of a road trip map to show you where the weird stuff is? Those gas station maps are like time capsules of what regular people actually stopped to see.

the_piper10d agoMost Upvoted

Found an old map in an antique shop once and my buddy swore it led to a giant concrete chicken in Nebraska, spent three hours driving circles around a cornfield for nothing.