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For many people, vacations are a once-a-year escape from day-to-day life. You spend months planning and days packing, all for that week or two of rest and relaxation. Naturally, you’d like to remember that vacation forever. But as life goes on and new memories flood your mind, it can be easy to forget some of the best parts of a vacation.
Photos, while a traditional way to capture your travel memories, are sometimes not enough on their own. With the right platforms — such as social media or customisable items — they can be elevated to evoke even stronger memories. Alternative ways to record memories may be more effective or simply more preferred.
Below are eight non-traditional ways to capture travel memories.
Social Media
Social media is a platform you can use to take your travel memories to the next level. On Instagram, for example, you can make a travel account, documenting all of your adventures — whether you snapped a photo, shot a video, or both.
With a social media account, you could string together photo and video content, and even add background music and a voice-over explaining what you’re doing. There are countless ways to use social media as your scrapbook. Plus, you can easily share your account with friends and family, giving them one easy location to see what you’re up to and how you’re doing.
Customisable Items
Customisable items are a unique way to elevate your photos. What’s more, there are endless options to choose from. From personalised phone cases to suitcases, whichever way you’d like to display your photos is probably available.
If you use a laptop or tablet a lot, you may prefer a customised laptop case or tablet cover. If you want something personalised but still functional, you may consider different homeware items.
Specific Scents
Smells have the power to unlock memories. For this reason alone, they are a perfect way to remember your vacation forever.
One creative way to utilize scents to capture memories is to assign a specific perfume or cologne to your vacation destination. Pick out a new scent every time you go on a new vacation and wear it while you’re there. You could even write the location you traveled to on the bottle. The smaller the bottle the better, to remain easy-to-carry and TSA-friendly.
The upside of this technique is that any time you want to remember your vacation, all you have to do is spray a bit of the perfume, breathe deep, and reminisce.
Local Recipes
For the home chefs out there, local recipes and produce are a great way to capture a culture. If you're more interested in getting to really know the location you’re visiting than jumping to and from tourist hotspots, this is all the more perfect. Local produce, unique foods, and specific dishes can oftentimes portray a location better than a monument or a museum could ever.
Try visiting a local farmer’s market or buy from local producers on your next trip. Take home whatever items speak to you and prepare them when you’re looking to relive some travel memories. If traveling by plane, just make sure to see which food items you can bring through airport security.
Draw a Picture
If you're artistically inclined, drawing a picture is an easy, affordable way to capture travel memories. Plus, it utilizes a variety of senses. When you draw a picture, you’re not only relying on your sight but also your sense of touch, sound, and sometimes even smell. You need all of these senses to draw exactly where you are and what you’re seeing.
One last sense you need to draw a picture is “proprioception,” or sense of position. This essentially just means knowing where things are in relation to one another. All these senses combined add up to record and create stronger memories in our minds.
Keep a Journal
A journal is a simple way to keep all of your travel experiences and knowledge in one place. It’s also an easy way to reflect on exactly how you were feeling when you were on your trip. Oftentimes there are even travel journals available for you at different convenience stores throughout the airport.
Use a travel journal to write about where you went, what you saw, how you felt, or any experiences you had. You could also write about the culture and cuisine of the place you traveled to, things that surprised you, or reasons to go back. A travel journal could even be used to plan your trip and jot down where you want to visit while on vacation.
There are no limits to what you could write about in your travel journal. But if you’re feeling a little nervous about the lack of structure in some journals, there are plenty available with prompts, worksheets, or questionnaires to get you started.
Learn Something New
Preserve your vacation memories by learning something new while traveling. This could include a new language, culture, or even a type of cuisine. Practice what you’ve learned not only while you’re traveling, but also when you arrive home. If you traveled to Spain, for instance, enroll in some Spanish classes to keep the language fresh in your mind. If food is more your style, bring back recipes you can cook for your friends and families.
There are countless ways to preserve vacation memories and the best for you will be what makes you the happiest. Whether it's learning a new language or buying a personalised phone case, choose one that sounds like you and you’ll be surprised how long those memories can last.