Let me take you on a road trip experience from Portland to New York City, stopping at a dozen exhilarating places in between. This road trip is portrayed via two ideations of the same map – one executed with cut paper and acrylic paint on a three-foot by six-foot canvas — and another digitally executed to be more accurate and usable in the form of a folded, handheld souvenir. The PDX // NYC map enables amateur travelers to explore new things within the comfort of their own vehicle.

The twelve stops on the map were hand selected by me to cater to my Portland audience of outdoorsy creatives who want to travel more. The trip is based on an adventure I had with a friend one summer where we explored the same route from the opposite direction. We stopped at the majority of these places, but there are a few extra oddities sprinkled in that I plan to explore further this coming June. Each stop showcases the great outdoors, entertainment, or creative exploration. Some examples of the type of stops are: a winery, some hot springs, national parks, a blues club, and even a drive in theater.

The large scale canvas iteration is an abstraction of the map that captivates viewers from across the room and draws them in close to study the details. The handheld map is meant to be approachable to the novice traveler who wouldn’t usually be comfortable with a physical map.