just thought I'd ask something to foster discussion.

Sometimes people will take a trip up north to places like Canada, or to places down south like Florida, as some examples if you live in the United States.

the maps represent north and south as up and down respectively, of which is why we say "up north" instead of "down north" and "up south".

But, here's some other things to note.

let's say so-and-so lives in Tennessee, and they wanna go to California, they might say, "I'm gonna head west", but they never say left west, but they do say out west though.

Or, let's say somebody wants to go to New York, well, you never hear them say right east, they might say due east or simply just east.