Incorporating a Linear Strip Map into Your Journal

Feb 18

Strip maps are a very old way to depict a journey—appearing in the Great Britain in the 1600s as guides for travelers, especially pilgrims. Here’s a video tour of my journal pages from our nearly 4,000-mile journey from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Tucson, Arizona (hauling a cargo trailer with our truck, in deep winter!). I continued the strip-style map across pages, sometimes “jumping” pages with a little dotted line if I knew the route was going to change cardinal directions and I couldn’t keep going across a spread.

It's actually pretty quick, and an easy way to do more with less time on a long or busy journey. Deciding what little icons to draw is particularly fun!

About the journey: We left Fairbanks in early February and were blessed with perfect weather and made great time and experienced extreme temperature spans (minus 40 degrees F in Fairbanks to 64 degrees F in Tucson). Still processing the epic journey, the feelings of missing Alaska but starting something new (though we’ll continue to visit, we are selling our place in Fairbanks . . . for good reasons, soon to be announced!).

Enjoy some video and image highlights below.