Forget your Lonely Planets and Rough Guides – here’s a universal travel guide that can work in any country, any place, or anywhere foreign or familiar actually, that you visit.
For her masters thesis at Konstfack design school, Magda Lipka Falck came up with Anywhere – A Travel Guide, a series of 60 handy flash cards focused more on the ‘how’ of travelling rather than the ‘where’. It offers advice like:
Guide
I very much like the idea that travel isn’t always about having to pack your bags and fly to a foreign country. Sometimes, as Magda herself puts it best: “There are many different types of travel. Sometimes they carry us right across the globe, sometimes into space and sometimes just around the block. Sometimes there is a journey going on inside us.” This guide could just as easily apply in your neighbourhood as it might in unknown terrain.
I also like the thought that that discovering a new place doesn’t always require you to know where you’re going or plan ahead. If you’re stumped for ideas, or just bored on your trip, you just need to fish out the cards and off you go on your exploration! You’ll never be bored, that’s for sure.
Handbook
Besides the Guide cards, there is also Anywhere, A Travel Handbook, a very enjoyable book which contains photographs, anecdotes and travel tips. The book is split into 4 parts:
- Memories – Magda’s photographic memories of her past trips. The pix are rather dreamy, a little abstract, a little blurry, kinda like what real memories are like.
- Stories – Various travel anecdotes and stories by other people. They’re definitely interesting and oddly relatable. Like stories you’d tell your own friends.
- Interviews – With different personalities and types of travellers, they provide insight into their travel habits and dreams.
- Guide – A photo montage version of some of the tips offered in the Travel Guide
Overall, I enjoyed the book, Some of the stories are in Swedish but there are English translations so you can still enjoy the stories. Unfortunately one or two of the interviews are in Swedish and not translated… This book would make a great travelling read, especially if you were on a train or waiting for your ride. It makes you ponder travel, and your reasons for travel.
For more on Magda and this project, check out her Konstfack page.