California Map & Travel Center: Making Book on the World

Story and photo by
Kathleen Herd Masser
Mirror contributing writer
  
   The world is changing. And whenever it does, Jon Eckstrom has the map to show it.
   Eckstrom is the proprietor of California Map & Travel Center, the fourth owner of the store since it first opened in 1949 in downtown Los Angeles. It moved to Santa Monica in 1984.
   Eckstrom bought the business four years ago because, he says, “I like to travel. I wanted something of my own. A bookstore . . . Santa Monica . . . near the beach . . . it sounded like it would be fun.”
   For the first year, it was. Then came September 11, 2001, a date that has mixed meanings for Eckstrom.
   “Everything changed,” he says. “People don’t travel as much. And when they do, they’re more likely to visit the Southwest than Europe. While someone going to Italy will buy stacks of stuff, someone going to Arizona only wants one map or one book.”
   He also cites the ever-dismal economy and the weakness of the dollar against the Euro for keeping people closer to home.
   But for Eckstrom, nine-eleven is also a date for celebration: it’s the day his first child, Jake, was born (a second son, Gavin, arrived last month, on November 2).
   Having a family hasn’t stopped Eckstrom from indulging in the pleasures of travel.
   “I’m more of a backpacker,” he says, “a hiker.” Though he hasn’t made it to Europe (“yet”), he has traveled extensively throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and expresses a particular fondness for the Caribbean.
   Eckstrom’s last trip – this past summer – was to British Columbia. “It’s harder to travel with kids,” he admits.
   California Map & Travel has little competition from chain stores such as Borders or Barnes & Noble. “We have a pretty good niche here,” Eckstrom acknowledges, “and we have a good reputation, especially locally. We carry a lot of out-of-the-ordinary books, plus maps and travel accessories. We’re sort of a one-stop place to shop.”
   “We’re in good shape,” agrees Roy Williams, who has worked at the shop since 1997, “unless they start up a Globe Depot.”
   Just walking through the doors makes a visitor eager to add another stamp to the passport.
   What Eckstrom modestly calls “out-of-the-ordinary” merchandise is in fact an extraordinary selection of travel guides. Beyond the predictable Fodor’s and Frommer’s, the store carries editions from Lonely Planet, Open Road, National Geographic, Rough Guide, AAA, Baedecker, DK, Fockors, Get Lost, Culture Shock and Culture Smart, and Green Guide and Blue Guide, among others.
   Adventurers interested in Amsterdam and The Netherlands can choose from 43 titles. There are 28 volumes on South Africa, 30 on China (including “Birds in China”), and a full ten shelves devoted to Great Britain.
   For travelers without a passport, there are 11 guides to the Smoky Mountains and more than 70 for Hawaii, including “Maui for Dummies,” “Surfing Hawaii” and “Snorkel Kauai.”
   Following the laws of supply and demand, there’s just one book on the Ukraine, and Afghanistan is relegated to a chapter or two in guidebooks that cover the Middle East. Iraq, for some reason, has two publications of its own.
   Savvy travelers never leave home without a rudimentary knowledge of the local patois, and Eckstrom stocks an astonishing selection of language and phrase books that embrace the alphabet from A-B-C (Arabic, Bengali and Czech) through X-Y-Z (Xhosa, Yiddish and Zulu).
   In the cartography department, there are practical maps – such as New Jersey, one county at a time – and decorative maps, suitable for framing. Travel accessories – neck pillows, passport pouches, currency converters – line the walls, and GPS navigators fill the display case. There is a full-fledged children’s section, complete with an animal encyclopedia and magnetic board games to amuse the kids during a long car trip or plane ride.
   For those whose fear of flying keeps them grounded, CM&T offers a wide range of travel videos and CD-ROMS.
   Customer James McPhee is a Chilean national (with a Scottish surname from four generations back) who lives in Santa Monica. He stopped in for a guide to Louisiana and the Deep South. “I’m leaving tonight,” he said, “flying to Atlanta then driving to Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans.”
   Not every customer is planning an exotic adventure (or even a bus trip to Tucson). Film production companies stop by for coffee table books to be used as set decoration. The shop supplies Thomas Brothers guides to corporations, including one of the area’s largest insurance carriers. Other companies want framed maps for their conference rooms.
   “And we do a lot of work with the studios,” Eckstrom says. Several of his maps have found their way to the big screen, co-starring with Mel Gibson in “We Were Soldiers” and Robert Redford in “Spy Game.”
   The shop’s all-time best seller is the Rand-McNally folding map of Los Angeles.
   Eckstrom clearly has the Earth covered. But it doesn’t end there. In addition to “every random island you could possibly think of,” says employee Jonpaul Balak, “we also have maps of the planets and astronomy stuff.”
   Now, CM&T is out to conquer the last frontier, slowly venturing onto the Internet, though for now only about five percent of sales come through the website, which Eckstrom calls “always a work in progress.”
   Occasionally, there are special orders that Eckstrom can’t fill, like the detailed topography maps requested by a couple who planned to hike across Russia. “Sometimes,” he explains, “what a customer asks for just doesn’t exist. If it’s available, we’ll get it.” The Russian maps were available, but only in the Cyrillic alphabet.
   His favorite part of the business – “besides making huge sales” – is the customers. “They’re great. When people come in, they’re excited about the trip they’re going to be taking. It’s a lot of fun.”
   California Map & Travel Center, 3312 Pico Boulevard, is open Monday-Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call (310) 396-6277, or visit www.mapper.com.