Travel Challenges

Recent test scores show that American kids know next to nothing about American civics. (I contend that there is no reason to know a fact that a) you don’t need in your daily life and b) you can instantly find on the internet, but that’s because I know next to nothing about American civics.) It’s a fair bet that we youthful Americans also know next to nothing about geography, and for similar reasons. Happily, Facebook has a way for us to really, really embarrass ourselves by displaying our sad ignorance: the Traveler IQ Challenge. 

This app quizzes you at ascending levels of difficulty: it lists a location, like a famous place or a world capital, and your job is to click the world map where you think the place is. The map is unlabeled, but does helpfully display country borders. Once you click, a flag appears where you clicked, and another flag appears at the correct location, so you can see how right or wrong you were. A box also pops up telling you how far away your flag was, and giving you encouragement or smack-downs as appropriate (i.e. “You rock!” or “You do know this is Earth, right?”). Once you’re done, you can compare yourself against your friends’ scores and against the top scores. 

The game runs on flash so some older computers might have a tough time, as mine does.  I have a hard time moving the cursor around, and each test is timed, so it can be tricky pinpointing the right spot.

I am surprised by how many I’m getting right, though I’m still in the easy rounds. I guess all that “Where in the World/USA/Time is Carmen Sandiego?” that I played as a kid really paid off.  I did check to see if anyone’s created a Carmen Sandiego application, but alas, no. Developers, get on it. I would spend all my time playing that.

In the meantime, there are some Carmen groups you can join if, like me, you never got over your love for that foxy lady and her hoards of humorously-named henchmen (i.e. Baron Wasteland and Sir Vile). Carmen Sandiego Is One Sneaky Bitch has some good photos of Carmen costumes for real people, if you’re still looking for that perfect Halloween outfit. And Carmen Sandiego: Where the Fuck is That Bitch? has excellent Carmen-themed cartoons, including my personal favorite.  

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