Fun Ways to Track Your Travels ~ Travel 50 States

When we travel, I love to have a visual of the places we have visited. Here are some fun ways to track your travels:

1. TRAVEL BLOG

The most consistent and accurate account of all our travels take place on my travel blog. It is here that I do my best to recount the ups and downs of each place we visit. This is not only a great way to remember what we’ve done, but I think of it as a legacy to pass down to my boys. Someday they may want to share it with their own family and remember how they spent their childhood!

2. WALL MAP

When we set off in the RV, I bought a simple United States map and hung it on the RV wall. Then I used markers to draw our route, and highlight each place we stayed with a dot. Over time, I changed the colors to indicate the difference between trips we did via Car, RV, Train, and Cruise Ship.

My mom also bought a U.S.A. map and mounted it to cardboard, and my family members kept track of our travels with push pins.

Tons of RVers use a Decal Sticker Map of the US to fill in as they travel to each state. The scratch off maps are also becoming extremely popular and they look really great! There are so many cool Maps out there today, I will link to some fun options below.

3. POSTCARD WALL

Another way I try to track our travels is by picking up postcards from different cities and states. They are cheap, lightweight, and easy to hang in an RV! Or they can be combined with a small ring to make a little booklet, put in a photo album, or stored in a photo box. Friends ALWAYS have to stop and check out our postcard wall!

4. PHOTO BOOKS

I have begun making several Photo Books through Shutterfly as another way to document our travels. I upload my pictures, and then choose the highlights from each location to have made into a hardcover book that we can look through with our kids and share memories. This is a seriously time consuming project with the varieties of themes, wallpaper, and clip art that can be added, but well worth it in the end.

5. CUSTOMIZED COLLECTIBLES

Since I was a child, whenever we took a vacation, I would collect some sort of souvenir from each place we visited. My collections changed over time, but one of my earliest was key chains with the name of the city or state we visited.

I remember my grandmother collecting state magnets. My mom collected salt and pepper shakers and playing cards. Then she started collecting ornaments, which I later began myself. My cousin collected bells. My husband collected coins. My uncle collected rocks and painted the name of the location he visited on each one. My boys began collecting pressed pennies.

There are so many interesting collections out there, and I absolutely LOVE to see what ideas people come up with. I’ve seen lots of inexpensive things that can be collected, such as stickers, pins, magnets, and patches. Then of course there are more elaborate collections that make great displays, such as mugs, picture frames, t-shirts, and hats. I love travel collections so much I even made a Pinterest Page about them.