My late mama was really into maps. I remembered my old atlas being at her bedside when I first left for the UK to pursue my studies, as she would look up places that I would visit during my time there. I had a penchant for maps too, in a way. In the days before the smart phone, the A to Z map books of major British cities together with a Collins road atlas were pretty much my to go reference when it comes to road trips.

While I still would have a physical map when I go travelling, the last five years saw massive improvements in tech that getting around places like Berlin or Tokyo was easy. If you have wifi.

Recently, I had seen ads coming up on social media regarding prints of city maps, which one can customise and they will print the map to the size you want. I wanted one but kept putting it off until recently with my spring cleaning activities, sprucing up the house with pictures on the walls were back on my mind. While my dining room walls have framed photos and prints from my past trips abroad, the living room and bedroom walls are actually bare. I had to Google these city map print sites and found a few, but the one that caught my eye with regards to custom design choices as well as having the European dimensions for the prints (the US has 24″ x 36″ as the largest print, whereas I wanted a 100 cm x 70 cm one) was a company called Mapiful which is based in Stockholm if I am not mistaken.

I have an old 100 x 70 cm IKEA frame currently unused and is sitting behind my sofa and I had been mulling as to what print should I buy to replace the tired aboriginal motif print (also from IKEA). After some tweaking this was what I came up with:

Will defo update with a photo of what the map would look like framed and hung in the living room.

In the meantime, I thought I’d order another one, albeit in the smaller 50 x 70 cm format. My other favourite city on this planet, of course.