Don’t let your travel experiences fade as the time goes by. Instead, keep the most precious travel memories fresh and alive with these simple tips.
Last updated: August 17, 2024
10 Ways to Keep Your Travel Memories Alive
Travel adventures come and go. They excite you for the time being, bring unbelievable experiences, and enrich your life beyond your bravest expectations. During your trip or right after you come back home, you intend to keep your latest travel memories fresh for as long as you live.
Alas, as you return to your everyday routine, these travel memories slowly fade, replaced by work, school appointments. The list goes on and on. You still remember many details of your latest trip, but none of them are as vibrant as a month or a year ago.
The excitement and joy of exploring a new place fill your heart anew when you occasionally stumble upon digital images or a photo album from your latest vacation. You feel curious and adventurous just like you were back then. To never let this excitement level go down, follow these 10 simple tips that help you preserve and keep your travel memories alive for many years.
10 EASY WAYS TO KEEP YOUR TRAVEL MEMORIES ALIVE
1. Create a Picture Wall
I love the idea of using travel pictures to decorate the walls of your house. There is nothing more personal than to make your passion for travel and photography a part of your decor. You can devote a small corner in your living room to hang your favorite captures.
As a bonus, having your travel pictures on display, you get to relive your most cherished travel moments again and again while sharing the stories behind those photos with your guests and visiting family members.
Some people go a little bit further by decorating each room according to a specific theme such as African safari or Amazon jungle. In my opinion, it’s one of the most proven ways to keep your travel memories alive from day to day.
2. Keep Your Travel Memories Fresh and within Your Reach (or Touch)
What is your most used item? Years ago it could be a notebook, your favorite clothes, or even keys. Today this honor belongs to your phone. We aren’t going to talk about how good or bad your relationship with your cell phone is. It’s a personal matter.
One thing that we are going to do is to use your smart device to help you keep your travel memories as fresh as new. The easiest way is to use your travel images as wallpaper and refresh your favorite travel moments every time you look at your phone. You can also let your creativity shine and get yourself a phone case that displays one or a gallery of your favorite travel pictures.
3. Get a Travel Photo Book
Gather your favorite travel pictures in one place and put them somewhere you can easily reach them. Instead of one image, use a personalized travel photo book to relive your beautiful, hilarious, and most cherished memories. Photo books are easy to make. And the reward exceeds your efforts tenfold.
4. Preserve Your Travel Memories with Jigsaw Puzzles
First time I dug into our travel archives to create a jigsaw puzzle was a few weeks before my niece’s birthday. The girl liked (still loves) doing jigsaws, but I already gave her one for Christmas. This time I wanted to do something different, to get a more personal gift, something that was made specially for her. A personalized jigsaw puzzle with pictures of her exploring waterfalls in Yosemite turned out to be exactly what I needed.
5. Turn Your Travel Memories into Magnets and Keychains
If you need to keep it small yet fresh, turn your travel memories into refrigerator magnets and keychains. The refrigerator is one of a few things in your house that you go to at least a few times a day. Thus, even a quick glance at the magnets on your fridge door can virtually throw you back to your latest trips.
And certainly, you can’t leave your house without a car or house key. So it’s another “place” to relive your most exciting travel memories a few times a day when your trip is long over.
6. Keep a Journal to Document Your Travel Memories
I didn’t really put time into journaling our travels until our trip to Europe and Morocco a few years ago. Since we were visiting a few countries in a row, I didn’t want to forget a single moment from those travels. Thus, I made a deliberate decision to document our travel experiences by the end of the day.
At times it was too much. I specifically remember one day in Paris. After a day filled with sightseeing, we barely made it to our hotel before the last front desk associate ended his shift. It was a long day. The bed was so alluring. On top of that, we had an early flight to Marrakech the next morning. But I couldn’t go to sleep just yet. I felt a growing surge of recording the events of the day.
Was I way too devoted? Maybe. But just a few months later I was so glad that I left a short note of that spring day in Paris in my travel journal. Even today, those scribbles keep my travel memories as fresh as if our trip just happened yesterday.
7. Have a Special Place for All Your Travel Souvenirs
For a long time I kept magnets that we purchased during our travels on our refrigerator door. Other smaller souvenirs were going into a small box in our dressing drawer. This way I tried not to lose anything and hopefully open that box once in a while to refresh my travel memories.
Then I saw one picture (I think it was on Pinterest) that made perfect sense to me. It showed a bookcase filled to the brim with travel souvenirs, such as globes, candles, books, and figurines. What a beautiful way to keep your treasures and preserve your travel memories!
I’ve never gone overboard to devote the entire bookshelf to our travel finds. But displaying our travel souvenirs in places where we can easily see them is now a norm in our house.
8. Make a Short Video
With modern cell phones, taking videos became a part of our daily life. A picture can say only as much, but a video also captures emotions and sounds. After the trip, don’t let those travel shorts get lost behind newer pictures and videos. Combine them into a short travel film instead. A movie where you and your travel companions are lead actors.
9. Display Your Travel Pictures on Your T-shirts
Stop wearing graphic tees that don’t mean anything to you. Decorate them with pictures from your favorite places in the world and relive your most memorable travel experiences every time you look in the mirror.
10. Start Blogging as a Way to Keep Your Travel Memories Alive
Just like journaling, blogging is another great way to keep your travel memories alive. And when it comes to sharing your travel adventures online, there is no right or wrong way. You can make your travel blog professional and public to inspire other people to explore the world. Or you can keep it private as a convenient platform to update your family and friends on all your trips.
READ MORE: 7 Books to Help You Become a Better Writer and Storyteller
