What are TreasureMaps®?

They are our version of a simple guide and gateway to adventures. It's really adventure Haiku, stripped down to only the essential information that provokes thought and a desire for more information. TreasureMaps® show the latitude and longitude of an X that depicts the gateway to an adventure experience.

How do I get there?

TreasureMaps® give you the latitude and longitude of a spot. You have to do the rest. Preparation, training and an acceptance of risk are the basics of adventure, so make sure you get them right first. You must be able to honestly answer to yourself: "I am prepared. I am properly trained. I accept all the risk of going on this adventure, and I won't blame anybody but myself if something goes wrong." Life is unpredictable and even experts get hurt sometimes.

1. TreasureMaps® are not designed as stand alone tools
   
2. Search the web for more info at www.google.com
   
3. Search Amazon for information books at www.amazon.com
   
4. TreasureMaps® are designed for adults 18 and older
   
5. You accept all risks in using TreasureMaps® or please, just don't use them. You'll need help in training and learning about these spots.
   
   
   

Having said all that, you can find a spot in a number of ways:

1. Get a GPS unit (Global Positioning System) satellite radio receiver. They sell as cheap as $150. These modern miracles can get you within 20 feet of a LAT/LON fix.
   
2. Get a good map and use conventional methods to hand fix it (pretty difficult, not impossible, and advisable as a backup with a compass if you use GPS)
   
3. Use an online map service on the net like MapsOnUs
   
4. Look at a globe (Scale is too rough for detailed navigation)
   
5. Guess the location with a highway map (not recommended)
   
   

About us?

We explore. We’re X-Ware, an Atlanta based company of adventurers. When we have a great adventure, we make TreasureMaps® of the locale and mark the starting spot with an X. The places are admittedly personal favorites. The adventures we experienced had their fair measures of pleasure and pain, risk and reward. You might not have the same experience. We find some pretty incredible places on this planet (and some not on the planet).

Rants

You know the thing about maps and guidebooks? They're all manmade. The Earth doesn't care about manmade lines on a map. It's the Earth. It'll be here when we're gone, but what will not be here are our "maps" and "states" and "nations" and "labels". Longitude and latitude depict space, and it is a useful construct for human exploration. But it's not the real dirt. If you are going to go out in the real world, you have to accept personal risk for your choices. The real world is no computer game or cyber surfing experience where the worst you can get is carpal tunnel syndrome. Computers and the virtual world of electronic media have removed realism in many of our minds. Reality is wonderful. Reality is dangerous, or at least risky.

Still, the places maps and guides artificially describe (and lead you to) can be real spots of incredible beauty, history, and culture. Maps are tools to help take you places. But when you strip away all the manmade labels and boundaries until there is just the raw earth what do you get? The spot itself. So that's what TreasureMaps® are about. Where the X marks "The Greatest Spots on Earth". Start there. Explore.