Travel Map (without holes/pins)

I love the travel maps that everyone hangs in their house with pins marking where they’ve been. We had an old world map we were using for this purpose, but it soon became depressing, as three children have made it difficult to be “worldly” travellers. I decided to switch it out for a giant USA map for a couple of reasons. 1. The world map was old, small, and dated. 2. Our family travel pins took up about a penny-sized section in New England. 3. A map of the US would give the kids an idea of the geography of our country.

We have a large swatch of wall next to the table that I wanted to fill, so we’d need a pretty big map (like 2-3 feet or more per edge.) Since we’re renting, I looked into peel n stick maps from Etsy, but just couldn’t force myself to buy them. They were between $100 and $200. Here are my Etsy finds:

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I checked Craigslist and FB Yard Sale sites, but nothing was coming up big enough or local enough to grab. So I waited.

Then Staples sent me a $10 coupon. I went to pick up a few little things like a permanent marker for a Halloween costume, pencil lead, stuff like that. After paying, I saw a tiny map section and there, like magic, was a 30″ x 52″ USA map for $12! It was fate!

It wasn’t as big or picturesque as I had been thinking, so I left without buying it. I couldn’t shake it though- it was such a good deal! An hour later I packed Derek back into the car and returned to buy it.

Again, as renters I am trying my best to put as few holes as possible into the walls. 3M sells picture hangers that seem to be a great solution for this.

After marking where it would be centered, Nate and Derek helped decide the height it should be hung.

I was so excited all day and couldn’t wait for Luke to come home to help hang it. Once the younger kids were in bed, we had Enzo tell us when it was straight, stuck those 3M pieces to the wall, and voila:

Again, since we’re renting, I didn’t want to stick pins into the wall. I found some black sticky-tack on Amazon and when it came , made it into little balls that represent pins. Ideally, the kids will never realize they are made from sticky-tack, because once they do, I’ll never see these little balls again…

Luke has admitted that he has already learned from the map, and is currently fascinated with the midwest. I was hoping it would be the kids learning, but I’ll take this too 🙂 I also hope we manage to book more travel with the kids. This may or may not be the primary reason I went through all this work….

Here’s how it fills the space. Not quite as massive as I planned, but can’t beat that price!

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Amazingly, this entire update hasn’t altered the quality of the wall underneath, which means less work when we move out.