The nature of gender differences in geographic performance is widely debated. It is suggested that one of the reasons for this disparity in learning is male propensity for exploration of the environment through personal travel. This study is an analysis of gender and cross-cultural personal travel as an indicator of performance on a standardised geography examination. Sixty, 13-year-old students from a small town in Texas kept a detailed diary of all the places they travelled to in one week. The student sample was composed of both Anglo (primarily White, European) and other (primarily Hispanic) populations. Regression analysis was used to correlate variations in an adolescent’s environmental exploration among gender and cross-cultural groups and performance on a geography examination. The results indicate that environmental exploration relates positively to geographic performance, depending on an adolescent’s gender and cultural background.