I have a great unique gift idea for the travel lovers in your life. This push pin map from Trip Map World is beautiful, made by a small family business and can be customised to match whatever room you’d like to hang it in.
Disclaimer: I was provided my map by Trip Map World in exchange for a post, but I did not receive any monetary compensation. All opinions are my own.
This was a lovely way to talk about our past trips as we put pins in the map together as a family, and discussed where we should go next. It nicely coincided with my son studying for his geography test on the European Union, so that’s helpful.
What started as a home DIY project is now a small business
Marta and Paulius live in Vilnius, and they weren’t looking to start a company when this all took off four years ago. “These stylish maps were a result of a personal need,” says Marta. “In 2017, we wanted a map for our home that would fit our particular taste: it had to be stylish, modern, and nicely complementing our interior. And of course, we wanted to mark our travels on it!” Everyone loved their map, and it seemed like there was a market for selling them. Trip Map World was born, and their team of eight people put together each map by hand and ship them all over the world.
What kind of map can you get?
You can choose a map of the world, or focus on specific areas like Europe, Germany, the UK and Ireland, or the US. When you choose which kind of map you’d like, you get to choose a colour scheme. You can go white with black, old-school atlas colours, or a really cool black one that has all the map details in white so it almost looks like you’re flying over at night. That would have been a bit too much for our living room, so I chose a European map in the retro colour scheme. You can also choose your push pin colour, with 15 options, or get a colour mix. We went with gold ones. There are three sizes: medium at 100cm x 70cm, large at 120cm x 80cm, and extra-large at 150cm x 100cm. We went with a large one, and it fits well above our couch. You can also get a personal message printed on your map. I only didn’t because I was panicking about picking something profound but not too much and just couldn’t come up with something. Ha!
Which map did I choose?
We chose to get the framed version, which means the lovely folks at Trip Map World stretched it on a frame for us, and pop in a foam backing so your pins are held securely. The canvas itself is finished with a UV varnish, so it won’t fade in the sunlight. You can also get the canvas rolled and shipped to you, so you can mount it how you like. They offer free shipping in Europe for all their maps, even the framed ones, which is a huge savings. The maps themselves are created by professional cartographers, so they are accurate, and they were last updated in 2020 too. They are super detailed, so even the small towns we like to visit in the Black Forest were on there, for instance.
The best luxury travel gift
These push pin maps are beautifully made, and they are made to last. Trip Map World says they should be good for at least 80 years, and I agree. This is head and shoulders above any map like this that I’ve seen in home décor stores. It’s just such a lovely thing to have in our home. We’re decidedly not country-counting type of travelers, but it’s nice to see where we’ve been laid out visually. As we put in pins, my son would say, ‘I don’t remember going there!’ and we talked about the food we had and the sculpture he climbed and then he remembered. At a time when we can’t really travel, it’s a real pleasure to look back on all the adventures we did have not that long ago.