Sunday, March 4, 2007

Moleskine City Notebooks = Travel 2.0?

Yeah, I'm not thrilled with the "2.0" appellation, but it has a purpose as shorthand. That said...

Moleskine has new City Notebooks, with about two dozen European and North American cities represented. Basic specs for the London notebook are:
  • Metro map + station index
  • 36 pages of zone maps + street index
  • 42 blank pages
  • 96 notched (tabbed) pages for your city file
  • 32 detachable sheets (think large postage stamp size)
  • standard expandable pocket
  • 12 translucent sticky-topped sheets
  • three placeholder ribbons

The brilliance shines through in the details. The detachable sheets each have "London" printed in small type at the bottom for quick reference. The translucent sheets are meant to overlay the map pages, so you can trace walking itineraries. There are six labeled and six unlabled tabbed sections, with a separate sheet of tab labels (most blank, some pre-printed categories). All of this in a slightly thicker-than-normal pocket Moleskine notebook. Genius.

Of course, they took their inspiration from genius....
"For every traveller who has any taste of his own, the only useful guidebook will be the one which he himself has written."
-- Aldous Huxley

Here's the product details, with current and future cities available. The starred ones are due out this spring. Also, the Moleskine page has a list of retailers carrying the City Notebooks. If you travel often, or are planning that One Big Trip, I recommend acquiring one.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

If you love London City Notebook.. you'll go crazy for London Moleskinecity Blog! Check it out!

Jennifer Koerber said...

And that officially completes the social computing circle. Use your notebook to customize your own guidebook to the city, then blog about your additions and reviews and comment on others'. Thanks for the pointer.