It’s beautiful to preserve your travel memories and have a physical highlights reel to reminisce over in times like this; from photo albums to memory boxes, scrap-booking and souvenir collecting, there are many creative ways to immortalise your trip of a lifetime. Travel memories are such a sweet thing. We were inspired to create a list of different ways to remember a trip by one of our clients, Julia Madelin, who has been to Iceland 13 times over the years and creates beautiful oil paintings to bring her travel memories to life. If you want to do something different with your travel paraphernalia and need inspiration, read our suggestions to kick-start your creativity.
1. Postcards
Along with taking photos, buy postcards. You can find them everywhere you go, and they are inexpensive. A postcard is a visual reminder of the places you’ve been, and are a great way to capture memories on the go. You can send them to friends and family whilst you are away, or save them up for when you are home to incorporate into a travel photo book or us for scrap-booking. Don’t forget to send yourself one whilst you are away, it will give you something to look forward to when you are back home.
2. Keep a travel journal
Writing down your experiences and stories is an exceptional way of keeping memories alive. They are great to pick up and reminisce about your adventures, as well as being fabulous dinner party fodder when you need to entertain. Travel journals also make a great gift for your children, grandchildren or friends if you would like to share your stories with them and look back at how destinations have changed.
3. Make a memory box
A memory box can be any shape or size, that you can put on display or just have in a drawer! Within each box, you can put different memories in from specific trips or countries. You can fill them with trinkets, tickets, left over money, pictures – whatever you like! Include holiday phrases or anecdotes, so when you go through the box later you can remember some of the sillier conversations.
4. Buy the same type of souvenir
A simple way to look back at your travels is to pick a souvenir you love and try to find it everywhere you go. It could be postcards, magnets, cuddly toys, a recipe book from every country. You will build up a wonderful collection of trinkets during your lifetime of travel. The memory also comes from the joy of trying to find (and remembering to buy) the souvenir on every trip.
5. Create a travel photo book
There are so many ways to print out photos, choose and collate the ones that show highlights of your trip, especially the moments you got to experience only once in your life.
6. Make a travel pin map
Mark your travel memories on a map! Make a DIY travel pin map and post it on a bare wall in your room. Whenever you visit a country or city, put a pushpin on its particular place on the map and insert information like the dates and duration of your travel. Alternatively, get a scratch map that allows you to “peel off” the countries you’ve visited. It’s a great way to see how much of the world you’ve covered (and what is still left to discover).
7. Put together a playlist of all the songs you heard during your trip
You can make playlists just about anywhere from Spotify to Youtube. The music you’ve heard on a trip can evoke a completely different set of memories. Make notes of the music you’ve heard as you’ve travelled and compile your travel soundtrack when you come home.
8. Try scrap-booking
Bring all your travel memories together in one place; photos, postcards, trinkets, bus tokens, menus and maps. It’s such a creative way to bring your adventures to life. Half the fun is designing the scrapbook itself!
9. Write a memory list
This is one of our favourites. Create a list of all the things you think are memorable on your trip. Write it down in a notebook or save a note in your phone and read them again on your journey home.
10. Photo painting
Turn your photos into art. Draw, paint, create a masterpiece! Take some time out of you day to bring your memories to life with watercolours, coloured pencils or acrylic paint. You don’t even have to start from scratch, you could print out a photo and paint over it. A perfect piece of custom art that you can frame for all to see.
Feeling Inspired?
With these unique ways to immortalise your travels, you can be sure that your memories are well-documented and will definitely last a lifetime. If you have other ideas on preserving travel memories, share them in the comments below.
We would like to ask our Discover the World community; our staff, our clients and our partners to share their favourite travel tales for us all to enjoy. Whether it is a photo, a comment, a story, video or voice message, we’d love to hear from you.
Please submit your memories via email, commenting on the blog post below or messaging us on Facebook or Instagram. We would like to feature these travel tales on our email, social and blog channels over the coming weeks to encourage us all to appreciate and remember the amazing things we’ve experienced.
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube