The first, my children’s travel notebooks. They each have a 3 ring notebook in their favorite color. Inside it is full of divided page protectors sized to hold postcards. For each major stop we make in our travels, each child picks out a postcard to take home for his or her notebook. On the back, we write the date and their favorite parts about the trip. Also included in their notebooks is a two sided laminated map – a United States map on one side and a world map on the other. These notebooks were inexpensive to create and are inexpensive to maintain, which works great for our large-ish family!
The second, this cork board United States map created by my husband. I saw this idea on Pinterest and modified it just a little. I liked the map framed out, so we kept the board intact. By way of DIY, my husband free hand sketched the map onto the cork first with chalk, so he could make any changes easily without damaging the fragile cork surface. Second, he traced on top of the chalk with a black Sharpie marker. After giving the marker time to set, he rubbed off the chalk. Voila! I love how it turned out! Now, using t-pins and washi tape, I’ve flagged the states we’ve visited. I’m excited to watch the map fill in over the years with all of our fun travels.
How about your family? Love to travel too? I’d love to hear about your travels and how you document them. Favorite trips? Favorite stops? Places we should visit in your home state? Please share! We’d love to have some “insider” advice on all the states we haven’t visited yet.
Your hubby drew that map free hand? I am super impressed!
i know, right? he’s good like that! 🙂
When you go to Nebraska do NOT take the interstate! 😉 Nebraska really isn’t that flat if you take the highways and travel away from the Platte River. When you hit NE let me know, we live in a touristy town and we make pretty good coffee! 😉
Dusti Rae, thank you!! Great tip that I’m sure I wouldn’t have known on my own. : ) I’ll look you up for coffee & a tour!
Corkboard map is GENIUS!!!! Thanks so much.
thanks, Whitney! : ) gotta love Pinterest!
We are Americans living in Europe. We had a family crisis last year, but before that we traveled a lot. One thing we did was bought a postcard from each place we visited. The kids love looking back through them and talking about the places we’ve been.
postcards are so easy to do, right? you can find them basically anywhere & they are so inexpensive : )
I love this idea and hope that you do not mind if we borrow it. Now, to get to all 50 states 🙂 Your blog is great as well. Thank you!
i hope you do borrow it! 🙂 thanks for reading. 🙂
I love your family goal… and the binder. My daughter loves to travel- this is right up her alley, thx!
we LOVE to travel too! i’m so glad you can use this with your daughter!
Great ideas! We are not big travelers, but perhaps as the children grow we will expand our horizons ‘in the name of homeschooling!’ =) I like the simple postcard idea. We’re headed to Chicago for a few days later this week with my husband for work. I’ll have to keep my eye out for postcards, because we could start this now!
thanks, amy! chicago is a great place to visit. i hope y’all enjoy yourselves!
All in all in purchase to make gadget perform properly
set up ought to be right. Apple has developed many gadgets but iPad2 is the best one.
Flip off your phone later on, and then flip it back on.
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