Now There Are 57

I hope the one with all the selfies doesn't win.

I haven't looked at them yet, but I agree that I find albums full of "me, me, me with something in the background" to be pretty boring.

Sorry, but I doubt if this thread was started as a soapbox to criticize people's scrapbooks. Look at them if you want, or don't; enjoy them or don't, that's up to you. The scrapbooks submitted are not necessarily meant for publication to a general audience. They are someone's personal memory book of their amazing trip to Europe. Sure some of them are very professional, well written text and National Geographic type photos but sometimes that's not what it's about. I think the effort people put into making them should be applauded even if they aren't like published photo essays by professionals.

Ditto Nancy. Why potentially discourage others from posting (future) scrapbooks by writing negative comments? This is not a popularity contest or a way to project your own hangups about how people choose to express themselves. The RS folks use their own criteria for judging the scrapbooks - they haven't asked the Travel Forum to formally weigh in. It's obvious the entrants put a lot of effort into these scrapbooks...for that, they should be applauded and encouraged.

I think they are all terrific! I am enjoying looking at all of them! The posters of these scrapbooks have put a tremendous amount of work into putting these together. I know it is a contest for a prize, but I want to say thanks to these posters anyhow!

I agree with you, Rebecca! Scrapbook season is one of my favorite times of the year! I've never seen another company have such a great resource available, and looking at scrapbooks really helped me decide to take a RS tour. I'm so glad I did! And I've enjoyed "getting to know" some of the contributors through seeing scrapbooks every year. There is one family with a daughter, mom and grandma that tour together and they have done several, and I always look forward to their new adventure. I've noticed there are several repeat tour members that make scrapbooks and I always enjoy reading ones from "familiar" faces.

I posted one of the scrapbooks, it was fun to relive the trip and I too spent a lot of time looking over previous scrapbooks when trying to decide which tour to take and in prepping for this one, and I wanted to return the favor, but it is a bit scary to know you can be picked apart for it. Its nice to know most people are looking with generous eyes and attitudes! I do find the people on these boards to be very kind and helpful!

I agree with Rebecca and Tamara! I also love to see what caught someone's eye on tours that I have taken myself in addition to looking at the scrapbooks of places I haven't toured with an eye to what my next tour is going to be.

And yes...I like all the gelato pictures in Italy. I always got the sorbet (no dairy) but seeing pictures makes me think of the pear sorbet and green apple sorbet in Orta San Giulio! And the peach in Ravenna and Orvieto!

I also like to see the different platforms people use for their scrapbooks. I am not very technically 'clined, so am not sure I could manage to put out products as nice as these.

editing to add: Lynny - I wondered if that was your 21 BOE! It was fantastic and I enjoyed the stroll thru your memories.

Thanks, Pam! I used weebly's website to make mine, I too am not technically savvy AT ALL but they do make it quite doable if you ever want to give it a try!
I agree about all the yummy gelato, I even tried a pesto- flavored gelato (a taste only from my former exchange student's) and it was so good!

I think the scrapbooks are a great resource for deciding on where you want to go in Europe. It doesn't matter if you are planning to go on one of the tours or planning to go your own you can learn valuable information from the scrapbooks. I went on the Best of Italy tour last year and just loved it. I really appreciated all the work that goes into putting together a scrapbook. I wish I had their talent to put one together.

I love reading the scrapbooks, too! They provide a level of information about, and insight into, the tours that you can't get elsewhere. I feel like I can get a better sense of what the tours are really like, and I love the fact that there's almost always a few tips about free time activities or great little extras someone has discovered, etc., that I can incorporate into my own planning.

We were on the tour with Gordon and Julie, who won the scrapbook contest last year. I loved reliving our trip through their scrapbook, but the most amazing part of reading it (multiple times, word for word, I may add!) was discovering all the things they did that were different from things we had done....on the very same tour! It really reinforced to me that an RS tour is not a cookie-cutter experience, and even though everyone is participating in many of the same adventures together, the free time built in to the tour really means that everyone has a unique and different experience. (Personally, if I could go back in time and experience the very same tour all over again, I'd have splurged on food a little more. Gordon and Julie definitely had some incredible food experiences that we missed out on!)

Nicole's Ireland scrapbook has a great section on accommodations. She posts multiple photos of the interiors and exteriors of each place they stayed, along with her "pros" and "cons" and whether or not she would choose to stay there again. I thought that was a great addition!

Wow! Totally useless for me to choose between tours because they ALL look fantastic.
Loved the "tips" section.

I would just like to add my "thank yous" to the chorus. I am just over halfway through the 5 that are now on the website and thoroughly enjoying each and every one. They are all very different but have a few things in common-like wonderful photos, great descriptions and they each impart such a joyous spirit! I can tell all of you have truly enjoyed your tours; and vicariously, so am I ! Thank you again, for publishing them for us all to enjoy.

Laura B- ha! I was thinking the same thing! I already have such a long tour wish list, and Paris and the Heart of France wasn't on it, until I saw that scrapbook. Such beautiful pictures! England and Ireland were already on the list, so I'll have to make room for one more (so far!)

I don't mind the selfies so much (though there were an awful lot of them) as the snarky comments in one of the scrapbooks. "Their parents must be very proud", indeed.

I really like to look thru the scrapbooks to see what tour or location I would to see the next time I travel to Europe. Every little thing helps

WOW! I didn't know that we had a local entry in the Scrapbook Contest 8^O

Matt and Joelle - Europe in 14 Days!

I just saw them last week; maybe they mentioned it, but I didn't hear it (the downside to having large travel group meetings). I DO know they had a great time!

@Eileen, thanks for pointing out Matt and Joelle's scrapbook -- fabulous!!! I loved the detailed descriptions of the tour experience as well as the gorgeous pictures.

I can't believe how many albums there are now. If you're never done a scrapbook before you may not realize the work that goes into them. It isn't just sticking pictures on a page.....

Thanks Eileen and Laura, you're too kind. This was our first experience attempting to create a web page, and we naively thought, yeah, this ought to take an afternoon. : ) Two weeks later, I was ready to scrap the whole thing. Don't think Francis Ford Coppola spent as much time on Apocalypse Now...

One lesson learned was not to create a Weebly site on a large iMac. The screen ratio/proportions looked spot on during the build, but once we hit 'finished' (publish) we viewed the site on a [PC] laptop and it looked awful. Stuff out of place, photos scaled to different sizes and some operating systems had changed the layout/format view, which altered how much of a particular image would appear in that space. Oh well, now we know. Hope others find benefit in following where this tour goes and sites visited. That was its intent. There are some great scrapbooks in this year's collection!

I have a 2015 RS scrapbook that is hanging out on my computer waiting for a "home". It is about 90% done. Although I have been out of college for quite a few years, I gave it the old college try. With it being leap year and one extra day……I still ran out of time. Makes me sad. It would not have won, but it would have been great to cross the finish line with it.

I only say this to echo the comments about how time consuming it is to make a scrapbook. It is work……but a lot of fun to re-live the experiences. Congratulations to all of the entries!!! They look super!!!!

John,
1) where is your city in Missouri?
2) finish your scrapbook now.....it doesn't matter that you didn't turn it in.....you will be so happy to have it to look at for the future!

I particularly enjoy the ones that have tips and reflections after the trip.

Kathy…..

1) it's south of New Vegas

2) you are right…..I am going to step back for a couple of days, and then I am going to jump back in and finish it up

John, I agree with Kathy - please do go ahead and finish your scrapbook and share with your family and friends. You are so close.

And I agree with everyone that creating a scrapbook took a lot longer than I expected as well. This was my first time ever using the Weebly site, so it took me a while to get the hang of it! However, the overall effort was a labor of love and helped our family revisit the amazing memories we had on our BOE trip last June/July. It was also fun to share the end site with our family and friends... and it has convinced at least one family to begin planning a RS tour for them.

I appreciate this forum and scrapbook archives so much! They were a tremendous help to me last year when we were planning our first family vacation to Europe. Our RS tour exceed all of our expectations, and I hope we can enjoy several more of them in the years to come.

Happy Travels everyone!

Suzette