Destination Reset
Location is Personal is published once a month by Lo Benichou & Amy Lee Walton. Sign up here to get it personally delivered to your email inbox, by an email sending robot.
Isn’t it funny how travel can feel like a reset button? From far-off adventures to local stay-cations, experiencing a new destination can recalibrate our understanding of language and location in interesting ways. At its core, one could argue that the human experience boils down to location and language. Language is how we interpret, communicate, and express culture; which is often segregated by geography.
My destination reset this summer aligned with my first trip to Africa where I spent two weeks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This dense, populous capital city was bustling with markets, commerce, roundabouts, and amazing coffee. The lowest point of Addis Ababa is over 7,630 feet above sea level; compared to Washington DC’s 410 feet. What I noticed most was the varied elevation, and that our proximity to the Entoto Mountains helped me keep my bearings in my passenger-side journeys through the city.
The Piazza Market was a staple during travel. This long-standing market sells fresh, colorful vegetables from the farmers in the surrounding countryside. Piazza is slightly south of the largest market in Africa, Addis Mercato, and also less crowded. You could tell we were getting closer to certain markets by people density and traffic congestion. Transportation varied from Light Rails, minibusses, distinctive blue taxis, and to private tourist drivers. No one pulled out a mapping app or hailed a ride on their phone. Navigation was less about GPS and more about human checkpoints. Getting to the next place involved going to the place you knew, then asking someone for directions.
What summer travels, dear reader, have recalibrated your internal compass? How does immersion into new cultures or getting lost in unfamiliar city grids renew your sense of wonder? Check out a few trips below that have reset Mapbox-ers this summer.
— Amy Lee Walton
Becky Harris, Product Marketing Manager: The Burgundy Region, France
“Growing up near the California wine region, I understood how critical region, land, and weather were to making delicious wine. Not until visiting Burgundy this summer did I understand the term terroir, the set of all environmental factors that affect a crop’s phenotype.
Location was nuanced and granular; grapes grow differently from hill to hill, from tops of hills to bottoms, even row by row, and these factors determine the flavor, price, and prestige of the wine. Viewing location by topography and agricultural attributes over streets and points of interest.”
Mikel Maron, Community Team Manager: Nairobi, Kenya
“I’m back in Nairobi, Kenya this summer, working with Map Kibera on data operations and getting reacquainted with the mapping community. The growth of maps and location use has been rapid with smartphones seemingly ubiquitous; especially apps booking taxis and motorcycles (known as boda bodas). But solely relying on mobile maps to get around, will quickly get you stuck.
Finding specific destinations often require a picture of the compound gate, traffic is often more unpredictable than algorithms account for, and given creatively interpreted infrastructure regulations guidance for turns are often given too late. There are also extremely steep, unmarked speed bumps and epic potholes. Several developers are working to adapt location services to these local conditions; whoever succeeds will unlock better navigation not only in Nairobi, but many parts of the world as well.”
Marena Brinkhurst, Community Team Program Manager: Marrakech, Morocco
“To me, North Africa felt like a concentrated adventure, an amalgam of its geography, aesthetics, history, and stories. I spent ten days in Morocco — Marrakech, the Atlas mountains, and eastern dunes. In awe of the massive landscape of desert, rocky plains, ancient mud kasbahs, and river valleys with cliffs like ochre-painted curtains. Everywhere was a feeling of otherworldly timelessness.
In one museum, a 12th-century North African cartographer’s map gave me a completely different perspective on the world. While watching the sunset from the crest of a dune, I glanced at my location on my phone; seeing that little blue point in the gold swathe of the Sahara was both incredibly stirring and humbling. I felt the immensity that Antoine de Saint-Exupery describes, “One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence, something throbs, and gleams.”
What we’re reading
- The impossible burger stalker, Bloomberg
- The Secret History of ‘Easter Eggs’, New York Times
- What would a powerful earthquake feel like where you live?, LA Times
- Science trip 12 sites across the US that show the audacity of science, The Washington Post
- How Data Maps Reveal Inequality and Equity in Atlanta, The Index
- How many pain pills went to your pharmacy, The Washington Post
- Earth observation data, satellites, and privacy, CNET
What we’re building
- Mapbox maps + Figma design tool → Mapsicle plugin
- New map style — Bubble, hypsometry and bathymetry meets all the bubble rainbow
- Meet MARTINI, an open-source, client-side terrain mesh generation code
- How Dosh hotel search uses the Mapbox Geocoding API to find hotels that pay you back
Events
- :clojure/south 2019 | Sao Paulo, Brazil | August 31-September 1
- State of the Map US 2019 | Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA | September 6–8
- ONA19 | New Orleans, Louisiana, USA | September 12–14
- CSS Minsk JS | Minsk, Belarus | September 18–21
- State of the Map 2019 | Heidelberg, Germany | September 21–23
- DC Design Week HH at Mapbox| Washington, DC, USA | September 25
Jobs
- GIS Developer
- Senior Frontend Engineer, Map Design
- Product Manager, Identity and Billing
- Solutions Architecture, Manager
- Senior Solutions Architect (Android)
- Senior Technical Account Manager, Automotive
- Lo B. - Interactive Developer and Brand Advocate - Mapbox | LinkedIn
- Amy Lee Walton - Principal Designer - Mapbox | LinkedIn
Location is Personal: Issue 8, August 2019 was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.