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Who needs Google Maps? Go analogue next time you travel – get out those paper maps and guide books and have a digital-free adventure
- Relying on a paper map and your own intuition can produce a unique and exciting travel experience – one that you won’t in a regular guidebook
- Pick up a travelogue to learn about a different side to a place and the local culture – look in airport newsagents and bookshops at your destination
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
Not so long ago, it was common to see travellers walking along with their heads stuck between the pages of a guidebook, as if it were some kind of bible that had to be stuck to – often at the expense of serendipity. These days, it is mobile devices and Google Maps that lead us to a pre-booked hotel room, which often come rated on TripAdvisor by someone who spent a night there.
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Although websites may be kept more up to date, a guidebook written by a professional travel writer holds more credibility, and there is less likely to be an ulterior motive behind a review.
Mobile devices, with their endless apps, the profusion of perceived “free information” online and easy access to it have drastically changed the way we travel, as well as how we navigate.
Most of us now travel this way (and many have known nothing but digital travel), but there are refreshing advantages to turning off your devices and using analogue intrigue and old school common sense and curiosity as your travel guides.
Finding your direction
Grid references and contour lines (which measures elevation on a map) mixed with a double shot of adventure once made for an intoxicating cocktail. They still can, if you pull out those impossibly folded paper maps of old.
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