Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder.

It's Thursday the 23rd of October.

I am delighted to say that I've just enjoyed a preview of a major exhibition at the British Library, Secret Maps.

That's the title of the exhibition that opens tomorrow

with more than 100 items about how mapping has been used to reveal and conceal

essential truths about the world around us.

It looks at all manner of maps from the 14th century to the present

day, how governments have tried to conceal things from their enemies, how a country like South Africa

during the apartheid era would actually display only towns and cities with white populations and a fascinating

London gay to Z. That was a map of the capital from the mid-1970s which documented gay

friendly venues in the city. I always enjoy travel-related exhibitions at the

British Library and this one has been made possible with support from Tony and Maureen Wheeler,

founders of Lonely Planet. Guess what? I was able to hitch a ride on the preview with Tony Wheeler.

You love maps. You love maps for all sorts of reasons. And I think this exhibition, having just

seen the preview of it, it goes right back to ancient history. You know, kings and queens,

keeping their territory hidden away from other people,

from other countries, from other people who might want to get their hands on it, right up to

one of the last things was tracking Taylor Swift's private jet, but she doesn't want to have us

know where she went, but we're all fascinated. You professionally have had really quite a long

association with maps. You, I presume, have got into a few sticky situations using other people's maps.

Well, yeah, I mean, on one occasion, so much mapping was sort of secret. You know, you weren't

allowed to copy this map or that map because it

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