'Always put up pictures of waterfalls or snow scenes-it keeps one cool.' Constance Larymore from A resident's wife in Nigeria, 1908

Pictures of snow scenes from last year's travels to the Snowy.

Just in case it gets hot.

"Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer" Anonymous

Let's talk about maps.

Steve Coogan likes to plan a trip using maps in "The Trip" movies.YES!

At school, one of my all time favourite lessons was when the teacher walked to the front of the classroom holding a long stick with a hook on the end. She would reach up and hook down the map, and I would be enthralled for the whole lessons. Maps still fascinate me today.

When my son was a toddler any car trip required a road map for me and a road map for him. Always! On his first road trip south as an adult recently, physical, paper maps are what he relied on to get him there and back again. And they brought him safely home.

We have had the Big Road Atlas Britain 2012 out many times, planning our route across northern Wales. Even though we wish to travel with a blank mind, modern travel requires us to have an itinerary. Government bodies, airlines, international ferries and rail pass dispensers, require us to have an itinerary.

To create an itinerary you need to have some idea of where you want to go. Maps are the way to go.

“A map does not just chart, it unlocks and formulates meaning; it forms bridges between here and there, between disparate ideas that we did not know were previously connected.”
― Reif Larsen, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet

And so it goes! Anglesey now has meaning; it is connected to Ireland, just look at a map.  Reading The ancient Ireland guide, you find that one of the maps recommended by the authors is The Survey's Official road atlas of Ireland. This map has been poured over, also.

I like to know where I am in the world, even if I am not where I should be. They allow me to make sense of my world, my place, my travels.

Maps are beautiful things to touch, to hold, to look at. I wonder at the names of places, the shapes of lakes and coast lines. And I am good at reading them. There will be maps in my luggage, there will be no electronic navigational device to leave me in the dark.

Maps... make us masters of sights we can't see and spaces we can't cover.”

― Robert Harbison, Eccentric Spaces

Ferry terminal on mainland Scotland from Skye

“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea of what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it. For this reason your customary thoughts, all except the rarest of your friends, even most of your luggage - everything, in fact, which belongs to your everyday life, is merely a hindrance. The tourist travels in his own atmosphere like a snail in his shell and stands, as it were, on his own perambulating doorstep to look at the continents of the world. But if you discard all this, and sally forth with a leisurely and blank mind, there is no knowing what may not happen to you.”
― Freya Stark, Baghdad Sketches 

This shall be my mantra as we prepare for our travels. I wish to be an artist of travel, not so much the tourist.

Awakening in Monterosso al Mare was the most exciting of sensations in 2012.