A City Map You'll Never Have to Fold Again

Crumpled City maps are designed to be casually balled up in your bag, instead of fastidiously (and always incorrectly) folded. 

I have a love/hate relationship with maps: I love to get lost in their intricate design, but I hate actually using them -- what with the folding and the tearing and the never-getting-it-exactly-the-right-shape-before-throwing-it-on-the-ground-in-frustration. Thank god for Emanuele Pizzolorusso's Crumpled City maps: they're actually designed to be wadded up in a ball without thinking.

Crumpled City maps come in a plastic bag, with no original creases to drive yourself mad attempting to preserve. In fact, the instructions command you to scrunch the map up into a ball before you even use it. After that cathartic experience, you're free to un-scrunch it and put Pizzolorusso's meticulous original cartography to use. The maps cover Rome, London, New York, Paris, and Berlin, and each one features a list of ten "SoulSights" "chosen to excite you" by the designer.

At only 12 Euros, these maps are inexpensive (and indestructible) enough to stuff into someone's Christmas stocking. If they're a frequent traveler, they'll thank you forever.