Travel Magnet Collection

My largest travel collection is my travel magnet collection. I formally started the collection immediately after I graduated college, resolving to get a magnet at every location I’d visit in my life. I was inspired to do this somewhat by one of my high school teachers (who had a similar collection that he had acquired with his family), and I was curious how many magnets I’d end up getting.

For the longest time, I had acquired hundreds of magnets and didn’t have a good way to display them, know how much the collection was worth, or sort and view the magnets. More than all of this, I wanted to be able to see the magnets on a map.

Eventually, I found MyStuff2 in the app store and started to formally catalog the magnet collection. Today, when I acquire a new magnet, I simply put all of the information in with my cell phone at the location I buy them–making data entry a little bit easier. Having the collection cataloged on my phone has made this virtual collection possible.

Here are some facts about this collection:

• There’s a total of 397 magnets in the collection.
• I formally began collecting these magnets on August 25th, 2007 in Montreal, Canada on my first “official” business trip. The most recent addition to this collection is Blue Bell Creameries in Brenham, Texas on October 10th, 2022. (This blog post was last updated on 10/22/2020.)
• So far, I estimate I’ve spent about $1975.45 on these magnets–not including tax. A handful of magnets were freebies, but the least I spent on a magnet was $1.59 (for one of the Alaska magnets). The maximum spent so far has been $15.00 (Meow Wolf – Convergence Station). The average spent on a magnet is $4.98.
• The distance from the westernmost magnet (Denali National Park) to the easternmost magnet (The Paris Metro) is 4,528 miles. Measuring from the northernmost magnet (Grande Denali Lodge) to the southernmost magnet (Curaçao) yields a distance of 5,162 miles.

Do you have a favorite magnet? Let me know in the comments below!