In an age when the physical printed map has––sadly––all but vanished for practical use, and the responsibility for direction-finding has been passed to Google and the mobile phone, I am still delighted that one outpost has held out against the march of technology: hotel receptions.

Whenever I check into a hotel in a new city, I always ask the receptionist for a town street-plan and, almost without exception, I am instantly provided with a physical, detailed, useful map of the surrounding area.  For free!

But there is always a little caveat.

Now, I like my maps to be clean, unmarked and unblemished.  But this is not the deal when receiving a map from a hotel reception.  Invariably, the receptionist has to leave their mark of previous ownership.

Sometimes this is nothing more than a bold ink circle to indicate the location of the hotel.  Often, though, further lines are added.  Wide strokes using colourful fluorescent marker pens, which indicate routes to places of interest, and which fan out from the hub of the hotel to form a lurid network of spokes across the map’s previously virgin surface.  Occasionally, an entire ad hoc roundtrip itinerary will despoil the originally unsullied record of roads and churches; streets and parks.

It is nothing short of cartographic graffiti.

But it can also be a fascinating study in psychology.

A lot can be read into the character of the receptionist by their map scribbles.  It is the front-of-house version of the Rorschach inkblot test.  Some of the adornments are angry marks, deeply ingrained, practically piercing the paper, perhaps indicating a deep-rooted resentment of our respective positions: paid employee and leisured guest.  Others are loving daubs, suggesting a willingness to be helpful; perhaps displaying a pride in a home city; a pleasure in imparting knowledge to a new and ignorant visitor.

Of course, I could always stop the receptionist from marking my map with a hastily-interjected “No” at the first moment that I see their pen poised, but this would seem rather churlish, particularly when they are providing a free service.

Instead, what I now do is to ask for two maps.

© E. C. Glendenny

E. C. Glendenny always finds a way.