Moleskine City Notebooks

I'm a big fan of Moleskine notebooks. I've been using them for my travels since my second trip to France in '03. Apart from the large size I used as a journal, I also bought a pocket size to use as my trip organizer. I filled it with addresses of shops I wanted to visit, restaurants I wanted to try and hotels and hostels in which to sleep. I took notes along the way of places of interest and the names of artists I discovered in museums. I did one for New York that I've used on two or three trips, one for Eastern Europe, and even a small one for London when we went for 5 days.

So when Moleskine announced their new City Notebooks I was very intrigued and excited. Now, after months of trying, I finally managed to get my hands on the one for Paris. They are not quite yet in wide distribution and the two places in town that have them were always out of the Paris edition. I eventually had to order it through Powell's.

If you haven't seen these yet their a brilliant little package. Included are maps of the city, street indexes, metro maps, blank pages for notes, and tabbed sections for restaurants, bars, shops, people, and various blank tabs for your own interests. One of the best bits, though, is the transparent sticky sheets that fit on the map pages so you can trace your routes or mark place of interest. I have all ready transferred all the things I marked on my Wayfaring map to my notebook maps and have also filled it with my own spots to check out.

Moleskine also has versions coming out for U.S. cities and I'm sure I'll pick up the New York book, and maybe the San Francisco one as well. Hell, I might even get the Seattle one just for kicks.

I wouldn't mind seeing some more general country books as we rarely only visit one city on a trip.

Labels: guide_books, travel planning