Do you dream of cities you've never visited? When you see a map, do you find yourself counting off the places you've already been, and staring longingly at the ones you haven't?
Wanderlust is hard to shake, and unfortunately, many of us have neither the time nor the budget to fully satisfy it. Fortunately, you can bring the spirit of exploration right into your living room with these cool apartment decor ideas:
Cartographers are a traveler's favorite kind of artist. Decorating your apartment with maps and globes is a sure way to make your place travel themed. If you want to visit every state in the U.S., you can use a map to keep track of your travels so far. Globes are the ultimate traveler's apartment decor, as they offer a quick and easy way to look at all of the cities and countries you might want to visit.
Be wary when decorating with maps and globes, however, as the color schemes and fonts on these can easily look garish. The last thing you want is to decorate your apartment with images that look well-suited for a third-grade classroom. Unless that's your thing, of course, in which case, go for bold color contrasts and large print.
Whether you travel regularly or not, you can easily use postcards to give your apartment a little bit of worldly flair. Whenever you go to a new place, pick up a postcard that suits your sense of style. Bring it home with you to hang up on a wall. If you have friends or family who travel, ask them to pick up postcards for you as well. This way, you can find images from places you haven't even been.
If you get too many postcards to fit on your wall, pick your favorites to display. Instead of storing the rest in a shoebox or closet, get a photo album and turn them into a cool coffee-table book. This way, your guests will be able to enjoy the postcards that didn't quite make it onto the wall. Alternatively, you can turn dedicate more wall space to your postcards : Stick them in frames to turn them into a meaningful and interesting gallery wall.
Head to an antique shop or secondhand store to find cool, old suitcases and trunks. These make great decorations for your apartment, since they're visually appealing and serve as sneaky storage spaces.
Stack multiple suitcases on top of one another to make an end table or coffee table. You can also make a nifty display out of an old suitcase: Remove half of the suitcase at the hinge, and install some simple wooden shelves into the space inside. Just like that, you have a shelf you can hang on the wall and use to show off your favorite souvenirs from past trips.
Most travelers take tons of pictures when they're on trips. These images are awesome because they give you an easy way to relive your experience. That said, often these pictures are printed, looked at once, and promptly forgotten. Instead of putting those pictures away in a box or even a photo album, use them to decorate your place.
Fill your favorite frames with pics from your adventures, and hang them on your walls. Not only will these pictures stand as a fun reminder of all the great times you've had, but they'll also be a conversation starter for when you have guests over.
Time is relative, and although that phrase isn't talking about time zones, it applies. Decorate part of your apartment with clocks in various shapes and sizes, all set to the time zone of your favorite or most-anticipated destinations.
Granted, the odds are good this won't be a particularly useful display. Every time you look at it, however, you'll be reminded of your jet-setting goals.