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I recommend everyone with even the slightest interest in the world or the need to understand things like time zones, seasons, flight paths etc. to get a globe, even just a small one. You just can't understand a non-Euclidean space by looking at projections and 3D globes on screens don't seem to cut it either.

> You just can't understand a non-Euclidean space by looking at projections

Interestingly and perhaps surprisingly, from a mathematical perspective you absolutely can. In fact, manifolds[0] are defined in terms of local coordinate charts. :-)

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifold

Peeling oranges (the way bored kids do) also teaches you this.

Please don't do this to the planet! Oranges only.

Insert joke about an orange peeling the planet.

I rarely/never saw mercator projection as a kid. I think I probably saw mostly Robinson projection[1] as it seems that is what national geographic was using at the time. Mercator looks so completely wrong to me; I don't know why so many people use it. It seems to have gotten more common. Anyway, I agree that a globe is best.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_projection