I’ve been a fan of the adventurer Al Humphrey and his microadventure concept for many years now. I’ve even designed and executed a number of them (Microadventure: Bolwerken, Microadventure: Urban AMS and Microadventure to White Tree Farm).
His recent “A Single Map is Enough” post struck a chord with me:
“And so I have decided to explore a single map. To look for the things that matter to me closer to my front door than ever before: adventure, nature, weather, wildness, exercise, surprises, silence, new people, wanderlust, and curiosity.”
“I don’t yet know what is the highest point on my map, the most remote, or the most beautiful bathing spot but I do know two things: firstly that they won’t be as impressive as on other maps and, secondly, that I will nonetheless enjoy finding them.”
Al Humphrey
This got me thinking how we could do something similar here. Unfortunately I don’t think Canada has a nice personalized map making service like the British OS provides. And given that our new house is located right on the edge of Lake Erie, a map centered around it would be 50% water. So I decided to lay out a circle 25 km from our house at White Tree Farm in a GPX file and use that as my single map equivalent.
Off the top of my head, here are some of the interesting places to see within this area:
- Southwold Earthworks National Historic Site
- Fingal Wildlife Management Area
- John E. Pearce Provincial Park
- Elgin Hiking Trail
- Hawk’s Cliff Woods
- Solitude Nature Preserve
You can read posts about our 25 km from WTF adventures here or see them on a map.
