7 unique ways to record your travels
Why document your travels?
Keeping a record of your travels, whether short day trips or a longer once in a lifetime journey can be super rewarding. It will help you recall and share stories of your unique experiences, and is a great way to have a record for your memories. The following list is a variety of options you can use to keep these precious memories, some of which I have tried and love, along with others that don’t suit me but would definitely suit others depending on their preferences.
What problems do I face when trying to keep a record of my travels?
I used to fall into the trap of taking 1000’s of photos during my travels, which then resided forever on an memory card/phone or in the cloud. These often contained duplicate copies which made it very time consuming to go through and curate a record to relive my experiences. This meant I rarely got to share my experiences with others!
Social Media
The most common and often easiest method to record your travels is to simply post photos on social media with a location and a small caption describing the photo and experience. Instagram in particular is helpful as it allows you to carefully curate a select number of images or short videos which can be easily shared with your followers. Just remember not to fall into the habit of only presenting the best and happiest experiences – stay authentic. Often some less than fun experiences or mistakes (though maybe not so funny at the time) may actually become some of your greatest travel stories in the future!
We personally keep alot of our memories online, but also create books and other physical memories that are great for the coffee table. You can also consider Instagram, Pinterest, Flipboard, Flikr, a Google shared album or 500px if you are more serious about photography
Instant Photography
(Credit: Dmitry Zvolskiy)
Instant Photography is a fun way to capture a moment in time. The little prints are easy to stick on a pin-up board, fridge, or wall, or place in your wallet. They are great conversation starters to talk about where you were & what you were doing.
FujiFilm Instax are probably the most popular and accessible instant cameras at the moment. Polaroid, and the classic Polaroid (reborn with the Impossible Project) is also an option, along with some other smaller brands, but their films tend to cost a little more and some sizes may be hard to find in some countries. FujiFilm have a great range of cameras at all price points. Image quality doesn’t change drastically with each model (it’s more the features available that differ).
The main downside of instant photography is the cost when you get bad prints – e.g. take a photo that you don’t like. Instant film printers and hybrid digital cameras aim to bridge this gap by allowing you to only print the photos you want.
Instant film printers are the new kid on the block, and you can choose from two main technologies – traditional instax film and the newer zink ink films. There are lots of cool and retro options from Polaroid, FujiFilm, HP and Kodak (another brand recently resurrected). I chose a Zink Ink printer as the films are sticky backed, so you can pop them in a journal!
Collect momentos
This does not just mean picking up your classic tourist trap souvenirs to bring back for friends – I’m looking at you magnets, bookmarks and key rings. If you love hiking, consider buying trail maps and outline trails you hiked. If you’re a foodie, get menus and photos of amazing dishes, and maybe even write some notes about your experience. If you love the places you go, collect ticket stubs for planes, trains, buses, museums, galleries, concerts. Keep them all together and figure out how to best present them.
See this blog post on 37 creative ways to display these memories by Allyson Travel Journal for some inspiration.
Photo Journaling
This is my new favourite way to keep a record 🙂
Before quitting work for our journey of a lifetime, I seriously considered several instant cameras and digital instant printer/camera hybrids. However, these products tend to have some significant comprises such as only being able to print photos taken on the camera (e.g. can’t print photos taken on other cameras), small sensor sizes, and poor digital resolutions. There are no real standouts here unless you are willing to invest a fair chunk of money.
In the end, I invested in a HP Sprocket Zink ink printer. This printer has many benefits including the ability to print pictures via bluetooth from our phones, inkless technology (cheap and better for the environment), and the photos have sticky backs which make it easy to put them into a scrapbook. My brother had given me some beautiful notebooks before my trip and I decided to use these notebooks to put photos and small quotes, sketches or descriptions in them.
As far as choosing a printer – in essence they all print very similar quality photos, they just have different apps for editing and different external designs. I would go for whatever is cheapest unless there is a particular feature in an app you need or really want. Just remember, other brand’s paper is essentially the same, but the little blue card for the first print of each pack is specific to that brand of printer, so if you do substitute brands, keep your printers brand of blue card!
Journals
Journals are one of my favourite ways to relive experiences I have had. Simply find a nice notebook and write to your hearts content. This does require a fair bit of effort to keep on top of, but with sketches and vivid descriptions, you can retell stories like nothing else.
Create a blog or vlog
These require a little more effort, but are easily shared across your networks to accurately record what you have done, who you met and what happened. Vlogs take a little extra equipment and some basic skills in video editing, but if you have the equipment and experience, or want to learn, can be hugely rewarding. Just remember what platform you use so you can come back and relive your experiences!
Photo Books and Digital Photo Albums
(Credit: Shutterfly)
A photo book is great for the coffee table at home for you to look over and fondly remember what you did (it’s also a great conversation starter with guests!). There are so many online businesses that create photo books it is hard to recommend just one or two. We think it is best to look at what businesses are in your country and find something that appeals to you. That may be through their price, online editing functionalities, design options, book size etc.
If you plan ahead, you can curate your own album as you travel, uploading the best shots every few days and ordering it as you return home so it arrives to your door shortly after you do!
Similarly, another option is to put aside your best shots and upload them to a digital photo frame.