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Amy McGuiness gets paid thousands of dollars to take tourists to the North Pole. What do they do when they get there? Take pictures. The only problem, the North Pole looks exactly like the hundreds of miles of white ice around it. The cost: around $30,000 for 30 minutes.

After deciding to visit a friend in the Peace Corps in Mali, John Bowe decided to hitchhike across the Sahara desert, which is probably the most difficult route imaginable. He carried only a bag filled mostly of books and a single change of clothes. One man's adventure to go off the map, off the grid, away from white people, away from technoculture, to the metaphorical heart of the middle of nowhere, almost deliberately

What's the pleasure of being lost, when you know your safe?

How do you map your own life?

Maps of all kinds in these radio stories to which CIA feels a great affinity which can be found here on This American Life. Don't let the title of the show fool you.. Though many of the stories involve Americans, very little of it actually happens in America. And when you're lost in the middle of the Sahara, like so many other travelers, the last thing you're thinking about is your nationality.

We're going off the map and into the airwaves.