101 Ways of Using your Map Journal

Travelling holidays are full of amazing experiences but, that’s only half of the tale ~

Highlighting holiday memories forever

Spending time with your travel memories when that moment for nostalgia strikes, is like taking a marvellous mini-break…

IF you can remember them!

Australia Map Journals simply summarize your trip on a single sheet… so,

Here are 101 ways to use it 😉

  1. First, naturally is to simply *highlight your holiday adventures*
  2. Most maps tell you where to go… Australia Map journals help you remember where you’ve been
  3. Create your visual keepsake by simply summarizing your trip on this single A2 sized sheet
  4. Remember the name of that ‘little restaurant’ find by asking the waiter to jot down its name in one of the 11 Map Journal memory boxes when you pay (or if they have a rubber stamp – Get it ‘passport’ stamped!)
  5. Ask the receptionist/concierge to write in the name of the place you’re staying (it’ll also come in handy for finding your way back 😉
  6. When getting someone to take your photo, ask them to also jot in the name of the attraction you’re visiting ~ You’ll be amazed at the wonderful array of handwriting styles there are.
  7. Need directions? Ask them to draw a mud map to illustrate where you’re trying to get to in one of the surrounding journal boxes ~ It’ll make a great travel memento
  8. Never forget a place-name again… Highlight the name on the pictorial map, arrow in where you are, or jot it in one of the adjacent boxes on the go
  9. Everyone goes on holiday at some point ~ Give a travel journal map as a thoughtful gift – they’ll love you for it every time they get it out in the future to reminisce those happy holiday times.
  10. Dot… dot… dot…your…trails…on…the…map
  11. Jot… jot… jot… your tales in the boxes
  12. Stick your Australia Journal Map on the wall with some photographic print-outs [a selection of thumbnail sized photos works well] scattered around the central hand-drawn pictorial map
  13. Giving a slide show of photos on the computer – Map Journals save you going cross eyed switching ‘windows’ between photo… google map… photo. The perfect accompaniment for illustrating spatial relationships of where all those wonderful photos were taken.
  14. Fun for showing and sharing your holidays over tea & biscuits (a tinny, or a glass or two of your favourite beverage!)
  15. With no worries of boring your family and friends by producing a tome [aka your travel journal] that records every laborious detail 🙁
  16. Not a travel-writer? A Map Journal is your Saviour – with a few dots on the map to plot your route, and the odd jot jotting down a holiday memory… the job of recording your holiday adventures is done.
  17. Record all the art exhibitions you’ve been to this year
  18. Life journeys ~ Life highlights ~ Let the map in the middle be your metaphor for where you’re going, where you’ve been and record special moments in the boxes around the outside.
  19. Year at a glance ~ record monthly highlights of your new business venture – you’ll be pleasantly surprised at year’s end just what you can ‘see’ you’ve accomplished
  20. Tablecloth at a picnic – Let the remnants of the meal help tell the story!
  21. What could be more beautiful than a paper boat made out of an Australia Journal Map? (Send us a photo of one you’ve made and we’ll send you a replacement map for free 😉
  22. Paper airplane would be cool to see too, while you’re at it
  23. Going on a train trip ~ The Ghan, the Sundowner, the Indian Pacific…
  24. Christmas journal ~ Each year get everyone to write in their highlight of the day
  25. Collate weekend breaks away in the caravan so you can see all the places you went to this year
  26. Give a Journal Map to one of the 350,000 caravan owners in Australia (or an RV owner for that matter) to record their trip.
  27. Give it to an aunt going off on a coach tour for a few days/weeks
  28. Going off on a day tour ~ Use a box per outing to record all your excursions over the course of the year.
  29. Ask people you meet on each trip to sign their name (and get them to add their highlight too). Some of the best holiday memories are the people you meet.
  30. Going bush… off to the outback on a 4WD trek
  31. Motorbike trip (such as the #BlackDogRide that takes place each September)
  32. Create a Post Office Passport getting an individual stamp to record each town as you pass through
  33. Heading off over the horizon…
  34. Setting out to do the big lap (that’s when you drive right the way around Australia)
  35. Why wait for that big trip (it may never happen) when all those small trips are just as worthy of remembering and collectively will amount to soooo much more?
  36. Celebrate the short breaks that don’t warrant a travel journal
  37. Take a Map Journal on what you think of as a non-journeying holiday
  38. For flying visits – – – dash – – – dash – – – dash – – – to – – – your – – – destination
  39. Arrow in where you are on the pictorial map when you get there
  40. And also where you’ve come from to visually show the spatial relationship between the two
  41. Pictorial maps possess the unique ability to snapshot entire landscapes succinctly onto a single sheet
  42. Plot and dot your personal path along the highways and byways as you travel and traverse new terrains…
  43. Interrelate the map and jotting boxes by arrowing in where events occurred to mark the spot.
  44. Map Journals are presented in a clear plastic travel wallet that protects the map in the front pocket…
  45. And preserves every true traveller’s treasure trove of ticket stubs and personal memorabilia in the back pocket
  46. Get it out and incorporate it into your holiday by jotting a few words whilst sitting in a cafe – the memory will be made all the more vivid.
  47. Using it in a location en route helps cross the bridge of time in years to come with place association.
  48. Let the coffee cup ring marks add to your story
  49. Give one to a colleague going on long service leave (so when they come back you can share in the fun they’ve had)
  50. Do you have every intention of starting a journal, but…. it doesn’t quite happen?
  51. Don’t be bound by the traditional starting on page 1 on day 1
  52. With a Map Journal spontaneity and randomness rules – you can start in the middle and work back, or at the end and only record the true highlights of your holiday adventure.
  53. Fishing trips – Enter a catch per box and give a tantalizing hint as to ‘where’ it was caught on the map LOL
  54. See if you can find the 27 native Australian animals (Listed here) that are illustrated on the map as well as decorating the surrounding boxes
  55. Give it to a child on a long journey and see if they can find the 27 different Australian animals that are illustrated here
  56. Bet you can’t find the duck billed platypus? 🙂
  57. Record your bird watching escapades ~ perfect for the Twitchers in the family
  58. Moving house ~ show where you’ve moved from in relation to where you are now (particularly impressive if moving interstate)
  59. Give it to a Grey Nomad heading north for the winter
  60. Use one Australia Journal Map to show where you want to go, and take one away with you – Later, see if they match up!
  61. Record anecdotal experiences in the boxes ~ Not a novel – just a few pertinent hilarious and/or memorable moments
  62. Map Journals are fabulous as a tactile complement to an on-line blog. Lets face it, a blog can only ever be ‘virtual’ and will certainly never be able to say it was with you, at the time, in the flesh, held in your hot hand when standing miles from home looking out at that next beckoning horizon 🙂
  63. In this world of virtual realities come home with a tangible memory
  64. Record your fitness countdown to running a marathon 10 weeks, 9 weeks, 8…
  65. Annual scuba dive record
  66. Daunted by the blank white pages of a yet-to-be-started journal… Map Journal illustrated boxes give you a head start to sporadically jot thoughts about your trip either over here in this box… or over there in that jotting box.
  67. A picture tells a 1000 words so maybe the odd doodle wouldn’t go astray
  68. Take a Map Journal on honeymoon, where the memories are essential, but priorities are not to spend it writing in some thick, fat traditional journal 😉
  69. Sure, start at the beginning if you’re the organized type
  70. But it works equally well starting in the middle, when the beginning isn’t too far behind and the pleasure of what is to come still lays ahead 😉
  71. Or, if you discover it still unused at the bottom of your bag when you get home, unlike a traditional journal, a Map Journal is still good to go for selectively collating the most impressionable memories for posterity
  72. Anyone going, going and doesn’t want the memories gone
  73. A Journal Map ensures those memorable moments remain forever memorable
  74. New baby’s first year – recording developments month by month
  75. Birthday Journal – from Baby to 10 years old – one box per year for a hand print and a ‘mark’ on their special day (without it resembling a corny ‘Baby Book’ dragged out for display at the 21st 🙁
  76. Give it to a child who’s off to visit interstate rellies for Christmas
  77. Teenage journal ~ from 11 to 20
  78. Decade journal – One highlight per year recorded on your birthday over any 10 years
  79. Graduating from school ~ “Oh, the places you may go!
  80. Gap year adventures backpacking around Oz
  81. Forget those pages and pages of woolly fluff ~ Record just enough to jog the ‘ole grey matter – we’re not looking for the first draft of a manuscript here.
  82. Jot down a mere word or two describing what you can see, hear, touch, smell and taste in the air ~ ‘experiences’ are experienced through the senses
  83. Recording what you can taste in the atmosphere is one of the most evocative memory recall mechanisms ~ the humidity of the rainforest, the dustiness of the desert and the dryness in your mouth before you take a bungy jump
  84. No point buying a full blown journal for a week-end away, use a Map Journal ~ So much more practical.
  85. Follow grandma’s journey as she travels around Oz, plotting her trip as she checks in with place names on Facebook
  86. Gastronomy critic? Use a box per restaurant, with a short review, so you have your top 10 choices encapsulated
  87. Diet journal – 10 week programme recording progress from week 1 so you can celebrate in week 10
  88. Not all holidaymakers are travel writers but all love reminiscing over travel memories
  89. Take your reminiscing to new horizons  
  90. Whether going on a weekend break or an annual hollers ~ Map Journals capture the spirit of your adventure
  91. Holidays and travelling are full of amazing experiences ~  but that’s only the half of the tale ~
  92. Combining a Map with a Journal is a pretty unique idea for tracking your trails & tales (even though I say it myself!)
  93. Unfolding a map of an area previously visited draws you back to places and times past.
  94. Letting fingers fall upon familiar place-names memories of valley vistas and towering ranges are brought vividly back to life.
  95. When your travelling’s done, relive the fun
  96. “To a man of imagination, a map is a window to adventure”. Francis Chichester
  97. Most people think of maps as being merely navigational, but the truth is they also evoke nostalgia and flaunt far away places that tempt!
  98. Journey Jottings maps exude a feeling that somewhere an ‘X’ marks the spot… But its discovery lies in the hand of the holidaymaker whose adventure is encapsulated in this ~their visual keepsake.
  99. Spending time with holiday memories (when that moment for nostalgia strikes), is like taking a marvelous mini-break… IF you can remember them!
  100. So after you’ve been back at work a week (in some cases a mere day), and those glorious lazy days are already beginning to alarmingly fade into a hazy distant memory
  101. …aren’t you pleased you have your Journey Jottings Map Journal to kick back with 😀

So… in the comments below…

Where have you used yours?

&/or

Looking a little left of centre, what wacky ways can you come up with to use your Map Journal? 😉

 

10 thoughts on “101 Ways of Using your Map Journal

    • You may even find a use for yours in amongst this!!
      How about #17?
      Or perhaps I should add another…
      #102 Monthly recap of Art works worked on/completed over the year.
      How would your kids be at #21 or #22? 😉

    • That sounds great Myriam!
      #103 Add your *highlights* to guide someone else going on a trip 😉
      (Hope they come across our Central Australia Map Journal when they get to Alice or Uluru!!)

    • Thank you Catherine for dropping by ~
      I look forward to seeing what you have in store with “My Divine Obsession” and participating – Sounds fun 🙂

    • With trains on the brain ’tis no wonder you like the sound of #23 LOL
      I’m flattered you’d even consider me to be your personal cartographer… 😉
      Thanks Jools!

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