Thinking about maps in travel journals and other things

Now that I have finally finished all my scanning from my recent 3 week trip to Eurooe, I was looking through a few of my travel sketchbooks last night...

last years big trip (11 weeks USA UK Italy) was so busy that I rarely drew maps, while during my 5 week trip in 2009 I drew maps every night. This year's trip I made an allowance for maps on my summary page and ended up drawing most of them when I got home.

What STRUCK me last night is... the few maps I drew last year where incorporated into a page with a sketch or two and that these ARE a lot nicer pages. If I hadn't got around to drawing a map on these pages, I could have added some text or some collage or just enjoyed the glorious white space which I generally don't have enough of in my sketchbooks.

Anyway... this has got me thinking of a different approach... it doesn't necessarily mean that it is another trip...but I am always thinking about how to do things different whether for a new trip overseas or just recording my day to day adventures.

Travel 'journal-style' pages, a set on Flickr.

Following on from last nights thoughts... I just created a new flickr set specifically for my favourite kind of journal-style pages.
A collection of some of my favourite pages that are in a journal style...ie. not just a single 'great' sketch on a page. Ones that tell a story, ones that I enjoy looking at and re-living months, years later.A combination of sketches, media, notes, a map, a bit of collage...and maybe even a tea cup sketch or two!