Not quite as poetic and intricate as Dante’s circuitous map of hell but a fascinating invention by Tom Gauld nonetheless.

[div class=attrib]From Frank Jacobs for Strange Maps:[end-div]

“A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell”, said George Bernard Shaw; in fact, just the odd few weeks of summer vacation may be near enough unbearable – what with all the frantic packing and driving, the getting lost and having forgotten, the primitive lodgings, lousy food and miserable weather, not to mention the risk of disease and unfriendly natives.

And yet, even for the bored teenagers forced to join their parents’ on their annual work detox, the horrors of the summer holiday mix with the chance of thrilling adventures, beckoning beyond the unfamiliar horizon.

Tom Gauld may well have been such a teenager, for this cartoon of his deftly expresses both the eeriness and the allure of obligatory relaxation in a less than opportune location. It evokes both the ennui of being where you don’t want to be, and the exhilarating exotism of those surroundings – as if they were an endpaper map of a Boys’ Own adventure, waiting for the dotted line of your very own expedition.

[div class=attrib]More from theSource here.[end-div]