After returning, what do *you* do to "close" the trip? Tickets,maps,receipt

I organize my photos. I put all the receipts in a quart plastic baggie and stash it. They're grouped by trip. I guess a file folder would work just as well.

Pam

Being a pack rat I keep my stuff for a long time and some things I will never throw away. I just started to set my expenses up on the computer for this years trip but I have not entered eveything yet. It makes it easier to go back and see how much was spent on transportation, lodging, food, souviners, etc. I suppose each person has to decide on how long to keep their pieces of paper. Mine will probaly be thrown away by my children after I have kicked the bucket. I do make slide shows from my photos. Photodex corp has great software for slideshows.

Hi, Peter and Robyn - I had the same dilemma after my last trip to Europe two years ago. I didn't want to part with anything and finally put everything in a folder and stashed it and promptly forgot about it. I came across it recently and it was really fun to look at everything again, reminisce and relive some of the experiences. Then I tossed it all without any regrets. My digital pictures are on CDs (wish I new how to make a slide show). I'll get new guide books and maps for my upcoming trip next April and start a new collection. Some people might use all the tickets and pamphlets and post cards etc. to make a scrap book of their trip.....

Peter and Robin,
We always delete quite a few of our photos as we are traveling so we don't have an overwhelming amount left when we get home. Some trips we do one album of 200 and other places we have never been or if it's an unusual trip(southeast Asia cruise for instance) we do 2 albums of 200.I also like to put a map of the country in front of the photos. Because not everyone likes to see that many photos, I usually do a small album of 36 doubles that we show to most people:-) That means that we delete until we have just enough for the album. We also put receipts in a plastic bag. As far as items we pick up over there or travel pamplets etc. I throw some but save the best things in a plastic bag to share with others or for ideas when we go back. After a few years I throw most of it. I used to do scrapbooks of postcards, tickets, maps, misc etc. I always keep the guidebooks and maps for a future trip or nice souvenir as I always have lots of notes in them. Judy

1. Shred the receipts after I get the credit card statements.
2. Start building the website to record the photos and itinerary of the trip.
3. Begin planning the next trip.

Make a file and keep VIS (very important stuff). Receipts to do my final bookkeeping. How much did I spend on transportation, lodging, etc. to get my total cost per day. Then smile or cry at the numbers! Also file my trip journal there. Lastly, edit all digital photos, print good ones and make a trip photo album.

I'm a hoarder LOL. I toss the receipts but I keep the maps, pamphlets, museum tickets, bus/train/plane tickets. I have 2 unorganised shoe boxes full of it.


With my digital pics, it gets stored on my computer AND are also stored on my external hard drive (just in case). I'm a neat freak and so my pics are sorted in folders chronologically.

I still enjoy getting copies made of my pictures and doing a photo album of the trip. I put some of the receipts (the more "decorative" ones) and pamphlets in the album. I like having something to flip through, and it's easy for my kids to pull them out of the closet and look at them, too.

I take a Moleskin journal and a couple of glue sticks on my trips and I add many of those paper items (receipts, pamphlets, restaurant & hotel info, etc.) to the journal as I go. Makes for a very fat journal, but it's all interesting to me as I read through it later. I don't usually include entire pamphlets, but rather stick in relevant pictures and information from them. For that, I keep a small kindergarten-style pair of scissors in my journal kit. I end up with an odd assortment of stuff, but I enjoy reliving the trip with it.

Pictures are another story. My husband takes thousands of photos and then is overwhelmed by them when we get home. He eventually puts them in Shutterfly albums, but it takes a year or more, much to my frustration. I buy postcards along the way and add them to my journal for visual memories.

Back in my younger, more ambitious days, I developed all the rolls of film and made scrapbooks with the receipts, maps, and photos from my trips. Now, I make websites for each trip with the digital photos (putting in links to as much info as possible and recording the prices I paid for everything from the receipts). I staple the receipts and maps into the back of the journal I keep on the trip. I find that I go back to the websites often but rarely ever look at the scrapbooks and journals again. Why do I keep them? I guess I'm just nostalgic.

My husband has made "movies" of many of our digital photos- I don't know what software he uses. He puts in music and uses special transition effects. It makes for a nice DVD to share with friends when they ask about our trips.

With the receipts, passes, museum/sight pamphlets, and pretty much any piece of paper coupled with the photos, I create a scrapbook. I get those 12x12 scrapbooking albums and the pretty papers and stickers they sell, and cut and paste (the old school way) into the album. It's a great way to use up all the scraps of paper. It takes time, but I love arts and crafts, so it is fun and creative for me. I find that I get to pretty much use up everything I have and it's a good record of our itinerary for future use. With the hotel, restaurant, car rental, etc. receipts, I hold on to it until the finances have matched up and then shred them. The pictures I put on Kodackgallery.com (in addition to my home computer) and that's a great way to share the photos with friends, family, and other interested parties.

Hi Peter. What I do is similar to what Nancy at Beaverton said she does, and some of what Maryam at D.C. does. I adhere some cash receipts onto pages in my journal book, to retain information of prices of some things (mostly food) in countries in Europe. I acquire a large scrapbook (14 inches height, 12 inch width) for each country that I visit. Each page is in a transparent polyethylene sleeve that is open at the top. The paper sheets are heavy paper, acid - free. The scrapbook has a total of 20 pages, counting both sides of each page. I fill the scrapbook pages with everything that can be put on the pages : photographs,picture postcards, photographs cut from brochures and magazines and books, artistic tickets that were for my entrance to museums and palaces, ..., airline boarding pass, small maps, foreign postage stamps, foreign coins, and I put little images of sea creatures - from a scrapbooking store - in my scrapbook of the Greek islands. I adhere the items to the scrapbook pages, using double sided adhesive squares (3/8 inch). A big scrapbook is approximately one inch thick, thus it occupies an area one inch wide on a book shelf. The photographs and everything in a scrapbook can be seen, any place, any time. Seeing those photographs does not require the use of a computer or any electronic equipment that may become obsolete in the future. When I travelled a long distance in airplanes, visiting my parents, I brought a scrapbook from one of my trips to Europe, to show it to my parents, when they were old and unable to travel. They enjoyed seeing the photographs. Photographs in the polyethylene sleeves, closed at the top by reusable scotch tape, are well preserved, for very many years.

...and the many pieces of paper, brochures, pamphlets, maps, pictures, information ... that does not go in my scrapbook is put in a big bag. Six months later I look at that stuff again, and decide if I want to keep any of it. For most countries visited, I tossed all that extra paper into the trash can. As for the guide books, and other books, I put them on a book shelf, in my permanent Library. The big Michelin maps of countries are put in a file folder with travel information, in my file cabinet, for future reference.

I make copies of all the appropriate docs for my airline miles.

I keep everything for each trip in a separate binder.

I start my scrapbook as soon as I get home. It allows me to relive my trip and keeps me occupied in between trips. I do throw away most of the receipts after the credit card statement arrives.

After the credit card statements have cleared and I've ok'd them. If it is a place I want to remember I have a small address book that I write down the information in. That way if I go back or if I know someone going I can share the information. The original is trashed.

Like someone else said I usually go through my pictures during the trip, to keep down the numbers. Once home, I will print out the ones I want printed and make an album. I will also post some online.

I will store other things according to the location.

This is when it really helps to have the perfect marriage. I'm not a pack rat; my husband is. So at the end of a trip, I put all my receipts, ticket stubs, tourist brochures, etc. ostentatiously into the recycling pile, and he looks horrified and gathers them all up again and puts them somewhere safe.
I'm not sure where that is, as I have never seen it, but this seems to work very well for us.

Since I usually can't afford much in the way of souvenirs, I keep a little of everything and make a collage using a largish (12" by 18") frame. I use the give-away maps you get in tourist info offices as a background and then add photos, ticket stubs, phone cards, coins and notes (if they're not worth the trouble to exchange), business cards, ..basically what you might put in a scrapbook, I put on the wall. The first one looked a little silly by itself, but now that I have a collection it doesn't look bad. I even keep labels or wrappers if they're interesting looking - something familiar but different like an American brand product with information in Polish, Czech, Russian...

Peter & Robyn,

Within 2 weeks of our return from vacation I sort my photos, delete 75% of them and make an album on Shutterfly with the best photos that capture the moments. It then becomes our coffee table book until our next trip. I find that by having the photos in these pretty professional looking books I still enjoy looking at them years later and it's more engaging for guests to our home who are interested.

I used to make slide shows but I never looked at them once they were done.

We try to just pick 1 or 2 items as souvenirs. Usually some sort of art piece that we can keep out and enjoy.

We leave our maps and guidebooks at the last hotel we stay at in each area. Hopefully others are able to use them while the guide books are still up to date and relevant.

Credit card receipts get tossed as soon as the bill comes in.

Like some of the other posters, I make a scrapbook of my first trip to a country and I use some of this stuff on the pages. But my sister-in-law had a great idea for a trip we took together a couple of years ago. She made paper bag albums for each of us to store receipts, maps, pamphlets, etc. They're simple to make (google paper bag albums and you'll get the instructions) and you simply store whatever bits and pieces you have from a day in the bag. At the end of the trip, most of your bits and pieces are stored with notes written on the bags as a reminder of what you did when. They're small enough so they don't take up lots of space but are a great way to organize the little mementos you don't have the heart to toss. I didn't do this for my last couple of trips and regret it. I still have a suitcase full of things from my trip in May!

We edit our digital pics while we travel late at night or during an afternoon siesta, labeling them (so easy to forget!). And then just before we go home (or on the plane) we pick our "favorites" from each locale, and have a hardcover book made through Shutterfly.com, including our favorite pictures, captions, dates, and some quotes from books we read about our destination before the trip. The Shutterfly site is so easy to use. We're building our own little library of European memories!

PS: Just realized I'm supporting Anne's idea! Highly recommend Shutterly.

Like many posters, I put everything in a box with the intention of "organizing" it within the next year. Usually that happens shortly before my next trip, which helps me remember to update/pack/change things for next time.

As for photos, I take hundreds and upload them each night (I travel with my laptop), including comments and descriptions that get "attached" to each one. It's easy with a Mac to do this, plus make slideshow DVDs. There is also a way to rate photos with a 5 star system, so really special ones can be easily found later. I guess Shutterfly and other online photo websites are ways of doing this without a Mac...

One important thing I do the night before my flight home is to burn ALL of the photos of my trip to DVD(s), making 2 copies - one for my checked luggage, and one for my carry-on, just in case something happens that wipes out or messes up my computer.

I also back-up my hard drive before leaving on any trip.