New Travelers - Please read a map!

Yes, definitely. Print a map from the Internet, and draw your proposed route on it.
Also for Switzerland, as rail routes in the Alps are definitely 3D. Sometimes the rail lines are at multiple levels and don't connect.
I have seen many posts with zig-zag routes. For example, London - Brussels - Paris - Amsterdam.
And one post recently was going by train from Bern to Strasbourg via Stuttgart. When I suggested they check a map, the poster got irate, said they knew geography, had checked a map and Raileurope said that was the only route ☺

Yes! Not only do public transport itineraries make more sense if you study a map, but you're likely to spot something you'd like to see that would have eluded you otherwise.

Amen, Roberto! Google Maps or www.rome2rio.com are so useful in understanding distance and times. I especially like Rome2Rio for comparing fly versus drive versus train decisions.

While it may not be especially good for planning routes in Rome, Google Earth is an interesting way to get the lay of the land and forming an kind of general mental map of the city.

...why there are no direct high speed trains from Positano to
Montepulciano or from Agrigento to Matera.

A high-speed train from Agrigento to Matera would be just about the coolest thing imaginable... :)

The problem is that certain new travelers won't not only read a map but this and similar posts either. Sometimes at this travel forum we read such widely open questions like Which countries I should go to in Europe? or What should I see in Europe? So we can amuse ourselves with these posts but those who should read it unfortunately won't.

Funny because whenever I ask my husband about any tour or independent travel, proposing an itinerary...........the first thing he does is look at a map. Then for hotels or even cruise ports, he goes to Google maps to look.

That's just how his brain is wired....it's the visual he needs.

Me, I look at the itinerary of what we will visit and hit TripAdvisor to get previous guest photos of the hotels. Trip Advisor is also great to see various photos of a location, be it a large city or a small village..........images of just about anything is posted nowadays, and it is easy to click thru 300 photos quickly. But, my spouse is not interested in those kind of visuals (except sometimes I can tempt him with a photo of an airport runway where people walk over to get into Gibraltar)...........he HAS to see it all on a map.

I will add that I can also be a Map Queen under certain circumstances....figuring out if we can easily use mass transit when traveling independently...how far is that hotel from the Metro stop? or, where exactly is that network ATM in relation to what we will visit that day? Also,when we hired a driver for Ireland, I had already gone on Google maps, charted out the distance and estimated time from town to town, built in extra margin, so it gave me an amazing starting point to talk w/ the driver after some email exchange.

Although I do utilize TripAdvisor for reviews of hotels and restaurants, and also to get a cursory look at 'things to do' in out-of-the-way places via their travel forums, I find the logistical aspect of their mapping extremely cumbersome and a P.I.T.A. besides. I really like to find out where stuff is in relation to where other stuff is. And TA fails in that respect.

They're not great for much else, but from a Point A to Point B standpoint the mapping module of Rome2Rio is quite good, and frankly is the first place I consult when crafting one of my convoluted trips. :)

Maybe it's a generational thing? I grew up reading maps before there was an internet, and I continue to do so. But I see so many posts, on this forum and on TripAdvisor forums, where people have obviously done none of their own research nor looked at a map. They post things like "I've got tickets to come to Colorado for a week. What are the 'must sees' to do there?" Drives me crazy!

I just got back from a week in London with a friend and my daughter. My friend had never been to Europe before and her travel experiences are very limited. Shortly after our return, she told me that the one thing she will learn to do before we take her to Italy in 2019 is to read a map! She commented on the skills of my daughter and me and felt chagrined her skills weren't better. Planning for travel as a novice can be overwhelming, so I think we have to remember that not everyone has the same background knowledge, experiences, or skills and would hope that we could take on the spirit of a helper for them. One of my most favorite things about travel is introducing the world to others as someone once did for me.

You are so right Roberto. This will be the 7th time to Italy and the 2nd time for a car. I always buy the Michelin Map to start with for the area's we want to visit, then Google Maps and directions for times, tolls, gas consumption and finally distance.
One thing we did before and will do again is to pick up regional driving maps which are so helpful if you want to do the "back roads" instead of the Autostrada.
Since you mentioned Matera, where we will be for 2 days and then on to Lecce for 3 and more stops up the Adriatic is there a must see in either of these 2 areas.
Thank you

If it's any consolation, visitors to the U.S often have no better idea of the distances between various points over here than we do of points in Europe. Most folks I've met that just because I'm from New York State that I should know 'the city' when in fact I live a seven hour drive distant.

And it drives me crazy when I ask someone who knows the territory how far it is from A to B and they say "two hours." NOT what I want to know!

Janet, the habit of defining distances in terms of hours (units of time) rather than miles or km (units of distance) I noticed is a typically American thing. I was not used to that before. It must stem from the fact that 99% of ground travel in America is by car and therefore it is common to define it in terms of driving times. It would be harder in Europe, where the same distances can be covered in half the time by train, so people prefer to use KM.

On our last trip to Europe, we downloaded maps to our Garmin GPS, and it worked out great! Why pay to rent one from the car rental if you have one already! 😀

Happy Travels💫✨

Good point about defining distances in terms of hours (units of time) rather than miles, Roberto. I think we also go by time instead of miles because not all routes are the same - some have to be driven at much lower speeds than others - and day/time of day can make a difference as well. The freeways coming into my city on summer Sunday afternoons/evenings are wall-to-wall with people returning from weekends "up north" so they're a slow go. Same with Friday nights/afternoons heading out of town. Rush hours on any day? Double or triple midday times. Add construction or detours ....

It can matter if someone needs to be somewhere at a particular hour or knowing how much road time will eat into a day trip?

why there are no direct high speed trains from...
Agrigento to Matera.

Perhaps the people asking that question are from California, where they're building a direct high speed train between Fresno to Madera. Maybe they simply assume any two random out-of-the-way places (especially those ending in "o" and "era") should be linked by high speed rail? : )