A Map for the Old School

February 13, 2008 7:55 AM

You know those world maps on facebook that allow you to pinpoint all the places you have travelled to? Where can I get something like that, but real?

I would like to get my dad a nice large map for his study where he can put little pushpins for every place he's been. I have seen Tackamap, but was wondering if other people had other suggestions, or any experience with Tackamap.

posted by buddha9090 to Shopping (7 answers total)

My girlfriend and I have a rather large map of the world that is paper, and we simply write on it with a pen indicating where we have been. It's kind of cool to have the actual lines connecting us to the places we've been. We put a big circle for places we've lived, and a little dot on cities we've visited. A dotted line for driving trips, and a straight un dotted line for flights. For cruises we use a dot and dash combination line. In retrospect, it might have been better to grab a laminated map and used permanent marker for durability, but we thought that permanent marker might be too thick, and pen might rub off, so we just went with paper...
posted by Grither at 8:06 AM on February 13, 2008

I use bits of blue-tack for my map of Europe, which works fine (though it is a bit less classy).
posted by greytape at 8:07 AM on February 13, 2008

I used to work at a map store, and we sold at comprehensive collection of different coloured map pins for juse with tackamap and similar. Like these. Little pin flags and spotted and stripy ones can also be had. Always thought they were cool.
posted by methylsalicylate at 8:34 AM on February 13, 2008

Tackamap seems silly to me. Why not buy a regular paper map, a bulletin board, and some dry-mount adhesive at Office Depot? $40 instead of $200, and you can pick a prettier map, too.

We have something like that at one of the places I work (for tracking dealerships and business connections), and it's always fun to use and refer to. The little pin flags that methyl mentioned are especially great. It always looks like you're fighting WWII. :)
posted by rokusan at 8:39 AM on February 13, 2008

Why not just buy colored stickers to take the place of pushpins?
posted by JJ86 at 9:20 AM on February 13, 2008

A dad of a friend of mine did the do-it-yourself - glued the map to a tackboard, used pushpins for the cities he had been, and then connected all the cities to the place he lived using red thread (he just tied it around each pushpin). Since he had been a lot of places, and really only lived in one city, it had a neat radial feel to it. I still think about that map, and still plan to make one of my own.
posted by bibbit at 9:50 AM on February 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

I would second bibbit's DIY approach. I work in a mapping lab and every time we've needed to do this, we just mount a map on foamboard (or tackboard) and pin away. Here's a description of the options.

National Geographic sells mounted maps for $250, but you could just as easily buy whichever map looks best to you, then go to a print shop and have them mount it. Go buy a nice, inexpensive frame somewhere and you're good to go.
posted by cptspalding at 2:49 PM on February 13, 2008