Relive past adventures and plan future ones from the comfort of your sofa – Holy Cow’s travel maps are the perfect decoration for any travellers home
For the last five years we have lived a nomadic life, constantly moving from new place to new place and taking in as much of what the world has to offer, as possible. We’ve learned that the world is much larger than we thought and the more we travel the bigger our bucket list seems to get. We’ve been to over 200 different destinations in every corner of the globe, and we’re not ready to fully settle down any time soon. We still like to travel, we’re still making plans, but this time as a family of three.
When I became pregnant in 2017, we decided to make a compromise. We would not give up our traveling lifestyle, but we would make a home base (we chose Amsterdam as the location). This gave us the stability we needed to raise a child, and also the opportunity to make a place our own for the first time since we left California and sold all our stuff in early 2014. While this might mean reducing the number of new places we go to each year, it does have the advantage of giving us the chance to really make a place our own. To fill it with our own stuff, and try out some of the decorating ideas we have picked up from all the beautiful places we have stayed.
While we may have missed out some really cool souvenirs over the years, (I’m still regretting not getting those Moroccan wedding blankets in Marrakech and I’m still trying to figure out how to get a door made in Bali to Europe) we found a way to remind ourselves of all those places. We got a push pin travel map! We have a beautiful piece of art hanging in our living room, will pins in all the places we have been and want to go.
Holy Cow Canvas is a company which specializes in travel inspired wall art and canvases. They offer a few different products – from beautiful cityscapes to dramatic nature shots, and even mounted canvas flags – but as soon as we saw one of their push pin travel maps we knew we just had to get one for our new home.
By putting a pin in every place we have been (doing this took a while!), we are able to keep track of them all and really bring our travels home. Just glancing at the map reminds us of so many great experiences as each pin represents a different set of memories. Every now and then I search out a pin stuck on somewhere I haven’t thought about for a while, and it brings the sights and sounds back to the forefront of my mind. It serves as a daily reminder of just how big and beautiful this world is.
“By putting a pin in every place we have been (doing this took a while!), we are able to keep track of them all and really bring our travels home. Just glancing at the map reminds us of so many great experiences as each pin represents a different set of memories.”
Now at first we planned to put it in our son Axel’s room. Despite being less than a year old, he has already been to seven countries (so we haven’t slowed down the travelling too much)! The idea was to put it on his wall and as he grew up he could see where each place he had been was, watch the map fill up with pins and be inspired to travel more. When the map arrived however, it was just too nice to look at and watching the number of pins grow looked like too much fun, so we ended up moving it into our living room.
Holy Cow has a few different styles of push pin map available to buy from their website, and they are all stunning. We chose the single canvas black and white option as it's simple and modern looking design suited our place, but their antique style maps were also tempting. Another great feature was the option to customize our map with some text in the bottom left corner. We went for our moniker “No Destinations’ of course, and had the legend tailored to reflect how we wanted to use our pins. One color shows where we have been and another shows the places that we want to go. They sell a few different pin colors however, so you can set it up to show whatever you choose. You could have a different color for each member of the family, or highlight places that have particularly special memories.
Taking up a large part of our living room wall, our map had become one of the centerpieces of our living room. It’s a great conversation piece if you have visitors, and even helps you improve your geographic knowledge. Best of all though, it is inspiring to look up at our wall daily and be able to both reflect on past adventures while at the same time getting excited about those still to come!
To purchase your own push pin travel map, follow the link below: