For an alternate take on the world, check out World Mapper. This extensive series of free maps and data show the world in myriad ways, including wealth, poverty, species at risk, land area … there must be hundreds, if not thousands of maps.

The maps can be viewed on the web, or downloaded as pdf posters (these contain additional information - a great educational resource as well as a traveller’s research haven).

The maps take a while to understand. It is worth reading their about page. Just this one sentence alone will help you to interpret the maps:

Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, using equal area cartograms where territories are re-sized on each map according to a particular variable.

The results are weirdly distorted maps - although after a while they become informative.

For example, if you want to avoid malaria, stick to the skinny bits on the map above, or be careful!

The data used to make the maps can also be downloaded in a variety of formats.

I think this is a pretty cool way of doing some research before you next go travelling.