"I'm just ashamed of my knowledge of geography. What's the best thing I can do to remedy this situation?"

Get your self a basic high school atlas.  You don’t need to get one of the huge, heavy ones.  One about the dimensions of a magazine will be a good start and make finding most places easy to start with.

When ever you read something, watch TV, or speak with someone and a city, nation, river or mountain is mentioned look it up in your atlas.  It will also help if after you find it in the atlas, you can then locate it on a globe.  This actually doesn’t take very long and since you already have the location in your mind, you’ll find that you remember quite a bit of it without too much effort.

It is also very useful to just stare at maps or globes as a form of study.  It will be good to tilt them so that you can see the areas from different angle.  Tracing out or drawing maps will be very heplful as well, and for many it is a lot of fun.

Lastly, I would suggest day dreaming or fantasizing about dream vacations.  Get out your atlas, world map or globe and imagine your ideal around the world trip if money and time were no obstacles.  Sometimes I like to imagine that I could repeat Captain Cook’s journey through the Pacific Ocean; or Marco Polo’s journey across Asia.  Sometimes I daydream (with globe in lap) of the places I’d visit if I were to circumnavigate the world on the Tropic or Cancer or Capricorn.  Gradually, you will develop a pretty good concept of geography.

And, or course, read travel books and watch travel shows on tv or the web.  Many good shows combine travel and food, booze, sports, history, fashion, etc.  Look at the travel shows available on Joost, Hulu, or Blinkx.  There is something for almost everyone.  But, keep that atlas handy.

Good Luck.

National Geographic also has lots of information and another great resource is National Geographic Bee Official Study Guide by Stephen F. Cunha. You can also learn lots about a various countries and places by reading travel guides. Both Lonley Planet and Frommer's have some great guides and their websites provides information as well.

Check out Sheppard Software which is available for free on the internet. One this site you can play geography game. Don't be put off thinking it is just for kids since you can set your level. It's a fun way to learn more about U.S. and international geography. Additionally this site also provides overview on the geography and history of a particular country. Following is Sheppard Software's snapshot of Malaysia -

The Federation of Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. It consists of two geographical regions divided by the South China Sea:

-West Malaysia (Peninsular Malaysia, Malay Peninsula) shares a land border on the north with Thailand and is connected by a causeway and the second-link bridge on the south with the island of Singapore.

-East Malaysia, the northern part of the island of Borneo, is bordered to the south by Indonesia and borders the Sultanate of Brunei on the east, south, and west.

The earliest recorded Malay kingdoms grew from coastal city-ports established in the 10th century AD. These include Langkasuka and Lembah Bujang in Kedah, as well as Beruas and Gangga Negara in Perak and Pan Pan in Kelantan. It is thought that originally these were Hindu or Buddhist nations. Islam arrived in the 14th century in Terengganu.

Portugal made Malacca a colony in 1511 by military conquest, thus ending the Sultanate of Malacca. After the fall of Malacca, three nations struggled for the control of the Malacca Strait: the Portuguese (in Malacca), the Sultanate of Johor, and the Sultanate of Aceh; and the attacks only stopped in 1641, when the Dutch (allied to the Sultanate of Johor) gained control of Malacca. The British took control of Malacca after the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824.

It was also about this time that many Malay states decided to obtain British help in settling internal conflicts. Less than ten years after the transfer movement was completed, several west coast Malay States came under British influence. The role of the merchants of the Straits Settlements saw British government intervention in the affairs of the tin producing states in the Malay Peninsula. Coupled with Chinese Secret Society disturbances and civil war, British gunboat diplomacy was employed to bring about a peaceful resolution that favoured the merchants of the Straits Settlements. Finally, the Pangkor Treaty of 1874 paved the way for British expansion; and by the turn of the 20th century the states of Pahang, Selangor, Perak, and Negeri Sembilan, known together as the Federated Malay States (not to be confused with the Federation of Malaya), were under the rule of British residents appointed to advise the rulers/Sultans. A new federation under the name of Malaysia was formed on September 16, 1963 through a merging of the Federation of Malaya and the British crown colonies of Singapore, North Borneo (renamed Sabah), and Sarawak, the latter two colonies being on the island of Borneo. The Sultanate of Brunei, though initially expressing interest in joining the Federation, pulled out due to opposition from certain segments of the population as well as wrangling over the payment of oil royalties.

After the racial riots of 1969, the controversial New Economic Policy - intended to increase the share of the economic pie owned by locals as opposed to other ethnic groups - was launched by Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak. Malaysia has since maintained a delicate ethno-political balance, and developed a unique rule combining economic growth and a political rule that favours bumiputras (a group including ethnic Malayans) and moderate Islam.

Between the 1980s and the early 1990s, Malaysia experienced significant economic growth under Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad, the 4th prime minister of Malaysia. The period saw a shift from an agriculture-based economy to one based on manufacturing and industry in areas such as computers and consumer electronics. In the late 1990s, Malaysia was shaken by the Asian financial crisis. Opposition to certain aspects of the existing system was put down by the government. The opposition runs the gamut from socialist and reformists to the party advocating the creation of an Islamic state.

I hope you find this information helpful.

This is free and it works, my entire family comes to this site, it will not only teach you US geography, but world geography as well!   It might look childish, but it works, it’s free and it is FUN, and it isn’t boring, and it has been shown, playing games like this, increases your memory retention, much more effectively than a book!   

 http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm

They also, have card games here is a site you can look at, to see if there is anything that might interest you, I wouldn’t buy them online, if you go to your local teacher store, they have them there, and you won’t have to pay for shipping, or try Ebay or Amazon!    Have fun!

http://www.educationallearninggames.com/state-cards-geography-game.asp

They also, make geography coloring books, that you can pick up too, which is an easy way to learn geograpy.   I promise, these are a great and fun way to learn!

Have fun!

The more fun way is to start a decade of heavy travel, doing thorough homework into the destinations you are traveling to. This is of course hugely expensive. But, it is the best way to internalize different places around the world.

The fun way is to get a good atlas, print out blank political outline maps of continents and then use the atlas and Wikipedia to fill in the blank maps--names of countries, capitals, 3 major cities,  and whatever additional information you want to learn. Wikipedia is pretty good when it comes to summaries of countries.

After you have completed a continent, you should study it and then fill in another blank copy of the continent without referring to your first sheet or any other reference.

If you are more interested in physical geography, you can study in a similar way, only you will also want to sketch in mountain ranges, deserts, major bodies of water, etc.

A pleasant way to reinforce this is by reading back issues of National Geographic which you can do by visiting a library.

When I was a kid, I loved studying about other nations. I had maps up on my walls and even drew each nation's flag using crayons. Today, I have forgotten most of that. But, Wikipedia makes it a lot easier to remember.