How Digital Maps Have Changed What It Means to Be Lost
The last time I was ever truly lost was in the summer of 2013. It was in St. Petersburg, Russia. I traveled there for work, and after four days of fighting jet lag to cram in sightseeing on the side, I fell asleep on a bus, nodding off over the copy of A Clash of Kings I’d been carrying with me during the trip.
When I woke up, I had no idea how long I’d been out and if I’d missed my stop. The stop was right across the street from my hotel—pretty easy to spot if you’re not asleep. So I tried to ask the bus driver if we’d passed the Park Inn. I didn’t speak Russian and he didn’t speak English, but he nonetheless made it very clear that passengers were not allowed to talk to him.
I was saved by a young Russian woman who overheard my distress. She tried to explain to me, in English, how to get back to the hotel (we had definitely already passed it), but perhaps seeing that her directions were not breaking through the fog of my panic, ended up getting off the bus with me at the next stop and drawing me a map. She had perfect winged eyeliner, and once she noticed my book, we talked about Game of Thrones for a while.
The instructions were simple: There was one, long main road, and I just needed to follow it all the way back to the hotel. She warned me it could take a while. I guess I’d had a pretty long nap. I thanked her with the gratitude of the truly desperate, and set off.
It was indeed a long way. It was late, too—but since it was summer in Russia, the sun had only just set, and I still had a lavender 11 p.m. twilight to navigate by. I cried a little bit and felt sorry for myself as I walked, worried that the woman’s map would be wrong or that I would make a wrong turn. I wasn’t totally convinced I would make it back.
Then a small and sprightly young man bounded up to me, seemingly out of nowhere. He asked me, in English, if I knew where McDonald’s was. I did not.
“Are you from the cruise ship?” he asked. He was neither Russian nor American; his accent was one I couldn’t place.
Apparently, there was a cruise ship docked nearby, and
