Sure, "Getting Lost is Half the Fun," But...

By Brian Hopkins

I read an article this morning which said that the state of Georgia has dropped nearly 500 small towns from their official state map. The reason given was that they want to remove the clutter from the map, making it easier to read. Towns with populations fewer than 2,500 were simply erased.

Now, I don't know about you, but the next time I'm touring Georgia on my motorcycle, I'm not going to be looking on the map for places like Atlanta, Macon, Valdosta, and so on -- cities I could easily find by following major highways and interstates. I'm going to be looking for little hole-in-the-wall places like Bogart (pop. 118), Eden (pop. 750), Experiment (pop. 2400), Isle of Hope (pop. 1200), Mountain City (pop. 829), and Doerun (pop. 828) -- well, maybe not that last one, but you get the idea. I'm going to be visiting burgs you can only find by following roads like Booger Holler Pass and Maybe You Ought To Turn Back While You Still Can Lane. (Yeah, I made up those roads, but the towns are real.)

So what. It's just Georgia, right? But what if other states follow suit? What if Oklahoma decides its maps are too cluttered?

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