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u/Dxsrespectful

r/GreekMythology r/dataisbeautiful r/SherlockHolmes r/JamesBond r/geography r/suggestmeabook r/MapPorn r/mobydick r/movies
I plotted the Pequod's entire voyage from Moby-Dick onto a real map
▲ 153 r/mobydick

I plotted the Pequod's entire voyage from Moby-Dick onto a real map

I've been plotting the real-world journeys from novels onto an actual map and Moby-Dick turned out to be one of the most rewarding because Melville is weirdly precise about where the Pequod actually goes. And I got it wrong a few times, with the help of Fianarana who pointed out my mistakes.

A few things that struck me plotting it:

  • The scale is enormous - Ahab's hunt isn't local, it's basically a lap of the planet.
  • I pinned a line of Melville to each stop so the map doubles as a little reading of the voyage.

Questions for people who know the book better than I do: did I place the Carrol Ground right (I put it southerly of St. Helena)? And does anyone read the final "Line" position differently? Genuinely keen to be corrected.

u/Dxsrespectful — 5 days ago
▲ 101 r/suggestmeabook

I'm mapping the real world journeys in fiction onto an actual world map - trying to get the 100 great "travel route" novels. Tell me which major books am I missing?

For a while I've been plotting the journeys in books onto a real map - the actual route the characters travel, drawn coast to coast, not a fantasy map. Some are obvious (the Odyssey, Around the World in Eighty Days), some are quiet (a single day's walk across a city). I'm trying to get the must have of "books that are fundamentally a journey" complete and I keep finding holes.

A chunk of what I've got, roughly by type:

  • Sea voyages: the Odyssey, Treasure Island, Twenty Thousand Leagues, the Aubrey–Maturin novels, In Search of the Castaways
  • Overland epics: Anabasis (Xenophon's march of the Ten Thousand), Lonesome Dove, The Grapes of Wrath, Blood Meridian
  • Round-the-world: Around the World in Eighty Days, The Voyage of the Beagle
  • Gothic journeys: Dracula, Frankenstein
  • Modern road: On the Road, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
  • A city in one day: Ulysses (Dublin), Mrs Dalloway (London)
  • Real expeditions: Endurance, The Wager, The Terror

What I'm after: the big ones I've somehow not got and the brilliant obscure ones. A few I'm still circling - the Aeneid, Journey to the West, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Kon-Tiki, Seven Pillars of Wisdom. And the eternal question: do people even want fully invented worlds (Lord of the Rings) forced onto a real-Earth map, or does that break the whole premise?

What's the one travel route book you'd be annoyed to see left off and bonus points for ones where the geography is weirdly real and precise?

reddit.com
u/Dxsrespectful — 6 days ago
▲ 8 r/movies

Trying to map the real world journey in the 100 great "travel route" movies - here's what I've got, what major one am I missing?

I've been plotting the actual journeys in films onto a real world map - the route the characters physically travel, drawn out geographically. Some films are basically a line across the map (road trips, chases, globe trotting adventures) and I'm trying to get all the greats.

What I've got so far:

  • Globe-trotting adventure: the James Bond films (each one is its own world tour), the Indiana Jones films
  • Road comedies: Smokey and the Bandit, The Cannonball Run, Borat
  • American epic: Forrest Gump (the whole thing — Greenbow to Vietnam to ping-pong in China to the cross-country run)

But the film side is thinner than I'd like and I'm clearly missing huge ones - especially the road-trip canon (Easy Rider, Thelma & Louise, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Little Miss Sunshine, Y Tu Mamá También, Nebraska, Green Book) and the big journey films (Lawrence of Arabia, Apocalypse Now straight up the river, The Motorcycle Diaries, Into the Wild, O Brother Where Art Thou as an Odyssey across Mississippi). And the recurring question: do fully invented worlds (the Lord of the Rings films) belong on a real Earth map at all, or does that defeat the point?

So, what's the one travel route movie you'd be annoyed to see missing? Especially ones where the geography is real and traceable, not vague.

reddit.com
u/Dxsrespectful — 6 days ago
▲ 193 r/SherlockHolmes

I mapped where Sherlock Holmes secretly travelled during the two years everyone thought he was dead

I plotted the travel route, the flight across the Channel (London → Newhaven → Dieppe → Strasbourg) to Reichenbach, then the two years in Tibet in Lhasa and the head Lama, travelling under the name Sigerson through Persia, Mecca, a visit to the Khalifa at Khartoum and then months in a lab in Montpellier in the south of France before he finally walks back into Baker Street.

u/Dxsrespectful — 7 days ago
▲ 27 r/GreekMythology

I mapped Odysseus's ten year journey home onto the real Mediterranean

Plotted the Odyssey onto a real map - Troy, the Lotus-Eaters, the Cyclops, Aeolus, Circe, the underworld, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, Calypso's island and Ithaca.

A lot of it is guesswork - most of the islands aren't locatable and people have argued the route for centuries so I went with the most common potentials. Where do you land on the Scylla and Charybdis = Strait of Messina theory?

Free: readingmaps.com (it's part of a bigger map of routes from 40+ books and films).

u/Dxsrespectful — 8 days ago
▲ 22 r/JamesBond

I mapped every location across all 25 Bond films onto a single world map

As part of a bigger project I plotted the globe-trotting in all 25 EON films - Dr. No through No Time to Die - onto one real map, each film's journey drawn hop by hop in release order.

I tried to be accurate to where Bond actually goes in each film rather than where it was filmed, which got genuinely tricky for some of the more outlandish itineraries. I fully expect this community to catch things I got wrong - please do.

It's free here: readingmaps.com (filter to Films / James Bond). Which film has the best real-world route, in your opinion? OHMSS and From Russia with Love are my favourites to trace.

u/Dxsrespectful — 10 days ago
▲ 89 r/MapPorn

I plotted the real world route of 40 books and films

Made this as part of a project plotting the actual routes from 40+ books and films onto a real map - each journey drawn stop by stop, with the sea legs routed around coastlines rather than cutting across them. Around the World was the fun one to trace because the Pacific crossing wraps right around the globe.

If anyone wants to poke at the maps (Moby-Dick, the Odyssey, Dracula, the 25 Bond films…) it's free here: readingmaps.com - and I'm taking requests for what to add.

u/Dxsrespectful — 10 days ago