Geography and Worldview?

In the western US it can be a 5-8 hour drive (at 70 mph) between cities of any size/significance. In between there is not much of anything.
 
If you are prepared to risk being lynched and want to cause a riot, ask a bunch of Northies which is the capital of the North?
Glasgow duh

Yeah, but they sound really different and really hate each other.
That’s what makes it so interesting to me. If I were back in the states and drove thirty miles, I’d still be the distance between Manchester and Newcastle to my uncle’s house, and I used to drive up there and back in one day. :)
 
I grew up in very flat parts of the world and have always basically lived in flat parts of the world. Czestochowa (Poland) is the most hilly part of the world I've ever lived in, and aside from the big fortified church on a hill in the middle of town our neighbourhood was basically flat.. with no mountains in view in the distance or anything like that. For that you'd have to drive south for several hours.

I don't know if this is really "worldview", but whenever I hike out into the mountains, the first couple days seem sort of magical. It's like my brain is trying to understand the scope of what it's seeing, and it's like you're feeling that process of your brain trying to wrap itself around the scope of it all. The first time I was ever hiking by impressive looking mountain peaks was in Patagonia, and it just all felt so grand and majestic.. and parts just didn't look like they should have been real. Each time I visit pretty mountains, there is a bit less of that feeling.. but it's still there, and I hope it stays there forever

Other than that I can appreciate geography and climate affecting culture a bit better, after travelling around the world a bit. People's lives revolve around the sun and the seasons and in different places that can mean different things depending on in part weather patterns, which are in part influenced by geography.

I've also learned that people living and being familiar with a certain "biome" have a certain sort of knowledge of how to live in that reality and how to use it to their advantage. When you go to a different biome and geographic reality, that knowledge can change too.
 
...I don't know if this is really "worldview", but whenever I hike out into the mountains, the first couple days seem sort of magical. It's like my brain is trying to understand the scope of what it's seeing, and it's like you're feeling that process of your brain trying to wrap itself around the scope of it all.

You should visit the Big Island of Hawaii, it's almost all Mauna Loa. :wow:
 
You should visit the Big Island of Hawaii, it's almost all Mauna Loa. :wow:

It's been on my list for a while, but it's one of the more expensive destinations on my list so who knows when I'll end up on the Hawaiian islands. It almost seems like a trip I'd want to go on with a friend, who I could then convince to drive us around everywhere by paying for the rental and the gas to make things fair.
 
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You should visit the Big Island of Hawaii, it's almost all Mauna Loa. :wow:
of the five volcanoes that make up the big island, Mauna Loa is huge and dominating. It is a shield volcano and not shaped like Fuji or Popo in Mexico. Kilauea, on its flank, is still very active and adding to the island. Yes a car would be required to see the island. Haleakala on Maui is equally impressive. You would need 7-10 days to thoroughly explore the Big Island. There is lots to see.
 
I can't help but speculate about this topic.

Example: Australia's two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, have completely different vibes. I'm biased as a Melburnian, but to me Sydney doesn't feel whole, there are too many hills, forests, large bodies of water interrupting the continuity of the built up areas, the roads twisting around these natural obstacles. Melbourne for the most part is one big uninterrupted sprawl; roads usually follow a grid pattern even when there are steep hills in the way. Sydney is the more conservative city with starker cultural and economic divides; could it be that the more broken-up urban geography of Sydney encouraged a more segregated, deterministic view of the world? I don't know, but it's an interesting thing to play with in my head.
 
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