dreaming of travel

Posted by twoyangs on May 20, 2011 in Blog | 4 comments

We’ve always dreamed of traveling and seeing the world – to experience different cultures, see natural wonders, and meet those whom GOD also created and loves. For the past few years, we’ve taken one big trip a year – to Hawaii, New Zealand/Australia, England, France, China, Italy, Alaska – but two week trips when we could steal away from work only whet our appetite for longer stays.

In the past year, we started a “dream map.” We mounted a wall map and took turns every week putting up pins of dream destinations – places like Peru (Machu Picchu), Jordan (Petra), Kenya (to see the great migration), Tonga (to swim with humpback whales), Japan (to boil ourselves in an onsen). It was fun to see the world on our wall, reflect on how big and awesome a place it is, and realize that we have seen roughly 1/3,141,592,653 of it. Sticking that map on the wall also helped us see what kind of route we would take if we were ever to make a trip around the world.

After seeing all those pins, there’s just too many places for one trip! So instead of the standard around-the-world-in-one-year trip, our plan is to take a series of long trips to different areas of the world. Plus, this gives us the benefit of coming home a couple times a year to see family and friends, which from all the long-term travel blogs we’ve been reading, is the hardest part about being on the road.

Here’s instructions on building your own cheap wall map. Besides being affordable, it doesn’t leave marks on walls and it’s easy to re-use and move the map if you ever need to. [Another option is this awesome scratch-off map suggested by our friend Jessica, who also designed our logo up there.]

Supplies:
World Map Poster (we got it from Amazon)
Two Poster Boards (Michael’s – don’t forget the 40% coupons)
Adhesive Putty & Picture Hanging Strips (Target)
Map Pins (Office Depot)

1. The map is bigger than the poster board, so measure and cut a board to completely back the map.

2. Use the leftover poster board scrap to bind all the poster board pieces into one piece using double-sided tape (or glue or a staple or whatever you have).

3. Stick the map to the poster board with putty

4. Attach the Command hanging strips to the map and the wall.

5. Line up and stick the Velcro together — ta-dah! You have your own world map to stick pins with all the places you want to go someday.