Q. Where is the Plain of Adana?

A. In Turkey.

Q. How cool can it be to know where the Plain of Adana is?

A. It can be $30,000 worth of cool to know such things.

If you doubt the dollar value of knowledge about the piece of landscape known as Adana, ask Karan Takhar. As a matter of fact, if you want to know about any of this planet's geographical features, ask the North Attleboro 14-year-old. He knows his geography as well as any high school student in the nation.

Takhar proved it this past weekend by winning the AAA Travel High School Challenge. Questions were along the lines of the location of the Plain of Ankara, or ranking the cities of Berlin, Cairo and Hong Kong according to average annual rainfall, or naming the largest city in Jamaica -- and that was just in the preliminary round.

In the process, Takhar picked up a $25,000 scholarship prize, along with another $5,000 earned as a member of the second-place team in the geography bee. Not a bad piece of change. But let's not forget that Takhar had to beat out 50,000 other competitors to come in first.

The ninth-grade student at the Wheeler School in Providence is not in it for the money. He simply loves geography -- and that has propelled him to three-peat as Rhode Island geography champ and to compete in last year's National Geographic World Championships in Budapest, where he won a gold medal.

But AAA is betting on prize money to stimulate interest among the young in geography. The auto and travel club started the Travel Challenge in response to tests that show American students sadly lagging behind their peers in other nations in geography knowledge.

So take it from Takhar, kids. It's way cool to know your way around the world.