Our family likes to travel. Who doesn’t? The trill of a new place, exciting adventures, foreign cultures, and delicious cuisine? What’s not to love! I also think travel can be very educational. As I now have a school-aged child (yikes! How did that happen?!) every trip we take is now a lesson for Ana. Whether it’s a linguistic explanation (“We speak English, but in Mexico they speak Spanish.”), cultural differences (“Here in Italy they drive on the left side of the road, while back home we drive on the right.”) or a simple geography lesson (“Your friend Beckham flew all the way from Boston, Massachusetts to visit you here in Portland, Oregon.”) I am always looking for a way to teach my girls. So you can imagine my delight when I discovered Pin My Travels. It’s a personalized map that allows you to mark the places you have been, as well as the places you want to visit.

Well, last week MY map arrived!

The box was gigantic, but surprisingly light. And it was packed really well.

Sim and I were both really excited for the unveiling.

I even had a spot on the wall already picked out! Perfection.

Now for the fun part: the pins!

You can personalize them how ever you want, but we kept it simple “Bateman Family Travels” and “Our Next Trips.” Our maps could get really complicated really quick if we tried to keep track of “Sim’s Travels” or “Parent Trips” and then add in the kids? Forget about it. If you were apart of the family when we took the trip, it’s a family pin. Simple as that.

These are all of our travel in the US (well I guess Mexico and the Bahamas are technically international, but they are around the US, so there). It was fun remembering each trip as I stuck in the pin.

And our International travels. They are fairly contained…for now. I’m just impressed I was able to pin things in other parts of the world!

The next order of business will be to add in the places we would all like to go in the future. I’m excited to see where the girls want to go. It will definitely make traveling more exciting knowing we always get to come home and add a new pin! You can see all the pictures of my new map here. And if you are interested in one as well, make sure you visit their website, Pin My Travels.