Maps bring back memories

Maps in kitchens and hallways trigger conversation. Fact. Seeing places visually take us back to the smells, sounds and tastes of our travels.   Those first trips abroad with friends, often in our late teens. Sangria, sunbathing and sun cream. We reminisce and remember happy memories, thinking back to stories from the past. Car journeys to France with so much luggage and food packed into the nooks and crannies there was barely space to sit.  Yoga in Goa, hair braiding, no wifi, hang on - no internet back then even!

We love it when our customers send in photos of their maps in their new homes.  The kitchen area is the most popular choice for our maps, this is also frequently the hub of the home. Children love to look with lust for places to visit. They question us and test our knowledge of oceans, capital cities and locations. We can share with them our past, snippets taken from a snapshot in time, visiting the pebbly beaches of Brighton, and childhood swims in the North Norfolk sea.

There’s something quite special about simply looking at a map and being transported to another time in our lives. What makes a holiday memorable? Good food, scenery, company and weather, according to several studies. I wonder if this is completely true. Childhood trips are remembered for the ice cold swim in the sea, the endurance of the British weather being looked back on fondly. Siblings bickering in the back of the car, do we remember these bits as adults with love or remind our siblings of the pinching and name calling? 

When things go smoothly on a trip, often the general feeling is captured but the stories aren’t as easy to recall. The flat tyre in the middle of the Australian outback, although a nightmare at the time, it becomes a tale to share many times over and a lesson in endurance and resilience! The time we missed the flight due to leaving the passport in the hotel drawer and had to fly home alone at an additional cost, may be a memory that overrides a weekend away in itself. 

We are all unique. Unique in where we have been, where we would like to go and how our brain chooses to recall facts and memories about a place. A map is wonderful in the fact that it will help us tap into that memory cabinet inside the brain, open it up and access those times, to share with our friends and family.