Wanderlust in the Age of GPS: ‘This Gives You a Purpose’

Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 06.13.03 | 11:52 PM ET

Why would a Vermont computer programmer wade into a leech-riddled swamp out in the middle of nowhere in Malaysia? To find the confluence of the 4th degree of latitude north and the 102nd meridian of longitude east, of course! If you’re confused, you’ve never heard of the Degree Confluence Project, the subject of a feature story in Thursday’s Los Angeles Times. (And you haven’t been dutifully clicking on our “Offbeat Sites” links; we posted a link to the project’s site ages ago.) Project devotees, many of whom are of a certain scientific persuasion, pack their hand-held global positioning satellite devices and wander off to find and photograph the intersection of whole number latitude and longitude points all over the planet, even in the middle of the ocean. Sure, David Lawrence, the programmer in question, could have simply opted for a tour of a Malaysian tea plantation. But what would be the point of that? “I have a wanderlust,” he says. “Yet traveling without a destination seems so random. This gives you a purpose.”