Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Category: International

  • Clapper Bridges

    A simple form of bridge design features a series of stone slabs set atop rock pilings. It ranks maybe one rung up from stepping stones placed in the water or logs laid from bank-to-bank on the evolutionary scale of bridge design. Regardless, it certainly falls within the more primitive bridge construction types imaginable. In England,…

  • Saint Martin Borders and Boundaries

    Borders? We don’t need no stinking borders. You didn’t really think I’d go all the way to St. Martin and sit on the beach all week, right? Well I’ve done a bit of that too, and I’ll focus some attention there in my next post. However, today it’s all about all the awesome border crossings…

  • Thank You for the Holiday

    Maybe you’ve seen the charity advertisements. They tell you that for the price of a cup of coffee per day you can save the planet, or some such claim? Apparently for the price of a cup of coffee per day someone can also get a Caribbean vacation. However, it takes about four years. I am…

  • Dueling Portmanteau Placenames

    My recent article on Mexican borders visible on Street View reminded me of a situation that’s long fascinated me. It came to the forefront as I viewed this image: Can you find the border in this image? Sure you can. That’s a silly question. Calexico vs. Mexicali The rural area north of this amazingly stark…

  • It Counts but It’s Pitiful

    We’ve had a lively discussion in the comments in relation to the “I’ve Barely Been There” article. I described the official 12MC Rules in the original article: if I touch the geographic area, no matter how briefly, I count it as a visit. I defined “touch” as anything more than flying over it. One doesn’t…

  • Memorable Crossings (Mexico)

    I examined several border crossings between South Africa and its neighbors that are available in Google Street View in the previous installment of this series. This time I move back across the Atlantic Ocean to North America, examining similar situations in Mexico where there is actually much greater image coverage. United States There are numerous…

  • Memorable Crossings (South Africa)

    Google Street View came to South Africa as part of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It remains the only portion of continental Africa[1] with Street View coverage as of the time I posted this in February 2011. So it definitely provides opportunities to explore South Africa. However, it leaves me wanting for images of its…

  • International Clip

    I’ve always had a thing about collecting and counting geography. You’ve seen plenty of examples of that on Twelve Mile Circle before. For example, reference my ongoing tally of U.S. counties that I have visited. Sometimes these “visits” are exceedingly brief, even measuring to mere seconds. Yet, they still count according to the arbitrary rules…

  • Back to the Clustr

    I appended a ClustrMap to Twelve Mile Circle a year ago, yesterday. That’s the little world map image that displays a few boxes down in the right-hand column marked by the “visitor locations” header. The way that the ClustrMap works apparently is that it compiles a map of visitors for an entire year, then it…

  • Egypt Returning to Normal?

    Much of the world watched events unfold in Egypt during January and into February 2011. I know I couldn’t pull away from CNN on the day that pro-government thugs pushed through Tahrir Square on camels and horseback (map). I kept watching into the wee hours as running street battles unfolded on live television. So I…