There may be differences in inherent curiosity that I'm not taking into account though. I've always been interested in the world of maps. One of my most prized toys as a small child was a real globe. I guess, in fact, I was interested in geography even before ever getting on an airplane. My parents, for their part, did a fair job of imparting a love of journeying too. For example, I was a few days late starting first grade as my mother and father drove from New Hampshire to Alaska and back in a modest, old Volkswagen bus.
Nowadays, I am so thankful for the advent of Internet for travel planning. I don't think the little town library where I grew up had much in the way of travel guides. Even now through inter-library loan, it'd be pretty hard to do spontaneous research. For example, as were considering a trip back to Sri Lanka this autumn, I cannot help but consider possible stop-overs on either the way there or back. From Vancouver it is almost equal distance and price to go east through Europe, or west through Asia.
I took the picture above near the house of Jay's family. What really struck my fancy last night was the possibility of taking an extra side trip to travel around Kerela for a week. It's tropical too and amazingly close by. We did spend one summer seeing a great number of cities in India but sort of missed the far south. By all accounts the geography of Kerala sounds immensely interesting.