Spencer, Indiana, USA

Defining Main Street: The Barbershop. Every Main Street has (or had) a barbershop, but they don't all look alike. This one seems to have been custom-built in a vacant lot between brick buildings. Maybe you would like to stop for a haircut and meet one of the barbers who works here, in Spencer, Indiana. [2017]

Alexandria, Louisiana, USA

Collecting haircuts is fun. What makes it fun are the barbers that teach you about the places where they live. There were seven in 2022: Alexandria, Louisiana (left); Las Vegas, Nevada, and Cami, Illinois (top); Grayson, Kentucky (middle); Virginia Beach, Virginia (the city's oldest barbershop), and Smyrna, Delaware (bottom); and Lancaster, South Carolina (right). [2022]

Moyock, North Carolina, USA

Only seven haircuts again this year. Top: Moyock, North Carolina; Derby, Kansas; Bismarck, North Dakota; Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Bottom: Beckley, West Virginia (Lefty is on the left, she cut my hair); Eagen, Minnesota; New London, Connecticut (new dad Basilio = $20 tip!). Twelve states to go to complete my U.S. collection! [2021]

Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico

Fewer haircuts than ever in 2020: Pre-Covid cuts in Tijuana, Mexico, and Sumpter, South Carolina. Home-bound cuts (two underage barbers) in Chesapeake, Virginia. Covid-Era cuts in Helena, Montana; Cape May, New Jersey; and Fort Mill, South Carolina. Eighteen states to go until Geographically Yours has been shod in each of the 50 states! [2020]

Marrakech, Morocco

♫ These Are a Few of My Favorite Things ♫ ~ Haircuts: Ordinary travelers can't pass up an inviting bar. Geographically Yours can't pass up an inviting barbershop. My instructions to the man on the right: Make me look Moroccan! And he did, thus entering my collection of barbers around the world. Check out tomorrow's post for portraits of my 2020 stylists. [2010]

Ash Fork, Arizona, USA

A 1958 Texaco Station-cum-beauty salon is one of the finer establishments in Ash Fork. The railroad enabled the village to ship out the flagstone that was quarried all over the area. And, in the mid-20th century, Route 66 provided a boost to the economy. But the "improvements" to Route 66 and the Interstate system brought only abandonment and decay. [2019]

Jessup, Maryland, USA

Let's raise a toast to barbers everywhere, especially the ten to thank for keeping my locks from growing too long in 2019: Jessup, Maryland, Hurricane, Utah, and Freeport, Maine; Portland, Tennessee, and Grinnell, Iowa; Spearfish, South Dakota, and Ocean City, Maryland; Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Ogallala, Nebraska, and Chandler, Arizona. [2019]

Arkadelphia, Arkansas, USA

If A = geography, and B = haircut-ology, then A∩B = getting shod in different places around the world, a Geographically Yours hobby for most of the 21st century, but systematically documented every December 30 only since 2014. So, here's to one barber in Arkansas who lowered my ears before 2014. [2012]

New York, New York, USA

If A = geography, and B = haircut-ology, then A∩B = getting shod in different places around the world, a Geographically Yours hobby for most of the 21st century, but systematically documented every December 30 only since 2014. So, here's to one Dominican barber on the Upper West Side who lowered my ears before 2014. [2012]

Naco, Sonora, Mexico

Here's to St. Martin de Porres and the barbers who cut my hair in 2018: in Naco, Mexico, and Key West, FL; Hobbs, NM, Kill Devil Hills, NC, and Seaford, DE; Port Royal, SC, and Quebec City, Canada; Flint, MI, Elk City, OK, and Mary Esther, FL, where I got my hair cut off on the Mary Esther Cut Off. St. Martin de Porres? He's the patron saint of barbers! [2018]

Colon, Panama

In 2017, I got shod in Colon, Pensacola, and Havana; in Oranjestad, Aruba, and Enterprise, Alabama; in Warsaw (the one in Virginia), Bernalillo (outskirts of Albuquerque), and La Laguna (on the island of Tenerife); in Virginia Beach (by the youngest barber ever) and Spencer, Indiana. There's no better souvenir than a haircut! [2017]

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

If you are a barber, take your practice to a downtown street and offer haircuts to the homeless. A donation box (like a busker's) will help defray the costs. Reminds me of Michelangelo's self-reflection: "I saw an angel in the marble and and carved until I set him free." In this case: "I saw an angel in the strooble and clipped until I set him free." [2017]

Colón, Panama

When you see a barber cutting hair outside under an awning, it is almost impossible to resist the temptation to have your locks shod (especially when you are only a mile away from the locks on the Panama Canal). This Panamanian stylist has been cutting hair for twenty years. [2017]

San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico

Thanking my barbers for 2016: First, the Mexican stylist who lowered my ears in Lower California. Then, left to right: White Rock, SC; Seoul, Korea; San Francisco's Nob Hill; Lake Anne in Reston, VA; Jackson, OH; San Dimas, CA; Kampung Glam in Singapore; Bangkok, Thailand; Roswell, NM; 15th St. in Washington, DC. Haircuts are such place-perfect souvenirs! [2016]

San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize

Thanking my barbers for 2015: First, my English-fluent coiffeur on Ambergris Caye. Then, left to right: Cannon Lane in Gibraltar; Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia; Paris, Kentucky; Bastrop, Texas; Lemoyne, Pennsylvania; Fulton, Missouri; and Redlands, California. Eight barbers, eight chaetophiles. [2015]

Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Thanking my barbers for 2014: First, my Dominican coiffeur in the British Virgin Islands. Then, left to right: McDonough, Georgia; Gulfport, Mississippi; Philippi, West Virginia; New Cumberland, Pennsylvania; Havana, Cuba; Bucharest, Romania; Dillsburg, Pennsylvania; Brunswick, Maryland. Nine barbers, nine friends, nine locations, one topophile. [2014]

Haridwar, India

Pilgrims converge on Haridwar to bathe in the sacred River Ganges at the point where it plunges out of the Himalayas and onto to the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Many make a haircut, and sometimes a head shaving, a part of the purification ritual. [2011]

Haridwar, India

Hindus converge on Haridwar to pay homage to mother Ganga (as in Ganges River). Many choose to shave their heads as a purification ritual that symbolizes humility and a new beginning. Rows of barbers line the streets of town, and a few get their hair cut as close to the sacred river as they can get. See the milky water behind? [2011]

Istanbul, Turkey

Haircuts are perfect souvenirs. They weigh less than nothing; they take up no luggage space; they provide entrées to neighborhood culture; they make you look like the locals; they are vehicles of people-to-people diplomacy; and, they burden not the future with decisions about disposal. The man in the middle is my barber in Istanbul. [2007]