The rules of Traveling as explained to us are that in order to Travel to a place, you must know your current location, and in order to Skim to a place you must know your destination.

In addition to this, we learn that you can Travel for short distances - in your line of sight as Rand shows us in KOD - even if you don't know your current location.

But in tGS, Sanderson seems to introduce a new concept, which to me contradicts what we've known of Traveling so far. He says that by making a "short" gateway to an area within sight of him, Rand "learns" his current location and can therefore Travel from it to anywhere.

In other words, Sanderson is saying that by Traveling TO a location, you automatically come to know it and can therefore Travel from it again immediately.

I think this is wrong, and here is my evidence to back this up:

At Dumai's Wells, Taim/Rand refers to the fact that his Ashaman will have to wait a few hours to get to know their current area in order to make a gateway back to the city. Some have argued that the Ashaman may not have Traveled directly to the circle of wagons, and thus could not have learned that exact location through the opening of their gateways, but I am pretty sure that the Ashaman Traveled directly to the area where Rand was held prisoner.

Secondly, in tGS Rand Travels to Ituralde. However, when he makes a gateway to prove that he is the Dragon Reborn, he makes one for Skimming, as proven by the fact that it is a dark hole into nothing, according to Ituralde. This would be because although Rand Traveled to Arad Doman, he hasn't been there long enough to know the location yet. So he can't Travel from there yet and has to make a Skimming gateway.

Thirdly, in CoS, Rand Travels to Illian to attack Sammael. Immediately after he steps through his gateway, he opens a "short" gateway to Travel to Sammael's location. Rand then specifically comments that "you didn't need to know your location if you were only going to Travel a short distance." This implies very strongly that if it wasn't a "short distance" he wouldn't be able to make a gateway immediately.

Why else make the comment that a gateway over a short distance was possible even if he didn't know the location? Clearly, Traveling TO Illian didn't let Rand "know" the location yet.

And fourthly, in an answer to a fan question, RJ says that Rahvin was surprised in his palace by Rand, because he did not expect Rand to realise that he could Travel short distances "even if he did not know his current location". Now, since Rahvin would expect Rand to arrive by Traveling, this can only imply that according to Rahvin, you don't learn a place by Traveling TO it.

To me the series has made it pretty clear that you do not know a place simply because you make a gateway to it. Instead, if you close your gateway, you have to wait a number of hours to learn the location again, before you can Travel FROM it.

One discrepancy is Sammael's visit to Graendal's palace, in LoC. He Travels there, and closes his gateway. Their ensuing meeting last for half an hour at most, before Sammael opens another gateway to leave.

I can only assume that Sammael has Traveled there before, and therefore already knew the place sufficiently well to make a gateway from it without waiting.

I am raising this issue, because it is perplexing. Either Sanderson has made a mistake, or I am interpreting the previous evidence incorrectly.

Might I just add that if learning the location of a place was that easy (by simply making a short gateway first) then no one would ever have needed to use the slower and less efficient method of Skimming. The purpose of Skimming as explained by Asmodean was solely to enable Traveling when you don't know your current location.

So what's the deal here?