Without Maps

Without Maps

What it means to be a good traveler

Daniel Scheffler's avatar
Daniel Scheffler
May 24, 2026
∙ Paid
Vintage stamps scattered on textured paper

I stumbled across Eryn Gordon’s TEDx talk on a quiet afternoon and couldn’t stop thinking about it afterward. Not because it confirmed something I already believed, but because it didn’t. She made me reconsider something I thought I understood — travel — and that’s rarer than it sounds.

We don’t do enough of that. We don’t pause long enough to ask whether the things we love might also be causing harm, or whether loving something means we have a responsibility to it. Eryn does ask that. I think more of us should.

I reached out, and she was kind enough to share this essay. I hope it stays with you the way her talk stayed with me.

The One Thing Every Traveler Gets Wrong

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