Illustrated Book by Sara Gingras

Inspired by my own road trip this past summer, I wanted to create a road trip travel guide that can be kept in your car glove compartment and used as a tool throughout the trip. This book includes planning tips, a map to sketch your route on, a list of car games, journaling prompts, roadside attractions and food suggestions from the 5 regions of America, and more! 

 

I ordered the pages in sequence of events, starting with a log to document important trip information, tips on before getting started, and a little note to encourage exploring and straying from your plan if you feel like it.

I felt it was important to include information about packing and planning, since this can be the most daunting part about a road trip. I included a checklist of essential items and a map of the U.S. to provide a space to visualize the trip route.

In the sleeping and camping section of the travel guide, I list a few essential apps that can be used to quickly find campsites while on the road. The die-cut mountain range transforms into a full starry night sky scene when flipping the page.

Every good road trip has games! I included a list of all 50 states for the license plate game, as well as four road trip games with instructions. The empty space on the pages can be used to keep score.

Since many people visit National Parks on road trips, I made sure to include a section of my travel guide about Leave No Trace practices. When you're at a National Park, you're in an animals home! The owl page is a cute reminder of this fact, showing the owl's little treehouse.

Roadside attractions can be a memorable and unexpected aspect of a road trip, so I created a list of the most popular roadside attractions in the five regions of the United States. I paired the lists with illustrations of some of these quirky monuments.

Traveling between regions opens your options to a wide variety of new and unique food options. I created the Try New Food page to promote experiencing the different cuisines of America. The booklet includes one interesting food option from each region, as well as a description of the food. As you turn the page, you see an illustration of healthy snack foods paired with a spiraling list of snack ideas to take with you on the trip!

I made sure to include sections for tips about showering, getting coffee, and keeping a loose schedule while on the road. Other pages are interactive, like the sketching and journaling pages, where the road tripper can document elements of their trip.

To create my illustrations, I used Procreate on my iPad. When creating my designs, I played around a lot with expanding my personal illustration style. I had to make sure that every page felt cohesive, whether that be with color, texture, shading, or style.