How do you hang on to your memories?

The best way I have found is to write everything down. I keep an extensive journal when I travel. Back when I started over 30 years ago, I wrote in a paper journal and then saved my photos. Now I keep a personal blog online (again, with photos). I write in it every day when I'm traveling so that I don't forget.

Even now, I can go back to those earlier journals from decades past and the memories come alive for me. It's the only way I know of to really keep all the details in my head.

ETA: I should add that eventually I transcribed everything from the paper journal to a digital one (before I started the blog). It makes it much easier to read down the road. :)

I do polarsteps as I go. See the polarsteps app.

I design photobooks (using photobookcanada.com). I wish I was more eloquent and journaled. I have been making more of an effort to add more text into my books.

Still working on my book from our June RS Adriatic Tour and I'm up to 120 pages!

Do you go back and look at them?

Not any more. For me, I decided I spent too much vacation time looking for good shots, and not enjoying just being there enough. And my photo skills weren't that good. I used to take a ton of photos, but after a while, I realized I was about three trips behind in looking through them and picking out the few decent shots. I might use one shot as wallpaper on my phone, and we used to pick one for a Christmas card, until we stopped sending those as well.

My wife will take a lot and then make a small shutterfly album out of them, but they're not something we go through often at all, or show to others.

I take pictures, and then make scrapbooks -- real ones, not books created on line and printed out. Also, we use pictures for our desktop image on the computer. It's fun when one of us will change the picture to see if the other one remembers where that site is.

I take photos with my iPhone and keep them there (stored in Cloud). I sometimes get actual photos printed and frame them. I look at my photos often, brings happy memories back.

I take lots of photos. Just point and shoot, I don't spend time trying to find the perfect angle or the postcard-quality shot. Quantity over quality. I also take pictures of the names of museums, streets, etc. I'll end a 3 week trip with about 750-1000 photos. When I get home I discard half or more because I take several of a given location knowing I'll thin them out later. I add labels to the ones I keep in case I want to get more details when viewing it (using the names I captured above). I then put them into a folder labeled with the name of the trip and use them as a background on my computer. I really do remember taking many of the pictures. Every couple of weeks I swap to a different folder and different trip.

I also keep a daily journal. I used to write every nite but that got a bit tiresome. Now I use voice-to-text and talk to my phone every nite, describing the day and send it to myself in an email. I include names of hotels I stayed, restaurants, etc. When I get home I take the emails, rewrite them a bit, and put them into a file.

We have 6-5"×7" framed photos (8×10 frames) in our living room and 6 more in our kitchen of past trips. After every trip we swap a couple of the old photos out for the latest trip.

I also write Trip Reports on this Forum as a way to have a permanent written record of each trip. Hopefully others enjoy them, but I often go back and reread them.

It's all in the mind.

We each have six or seven sets of screen savers on our computers and change them every so often. Every time the computers boot up, there is another memory.

I use Susan's method with just keeping them on the iPhone/iPad/cloud. I stopped printing anything out or doing scrap books about 10 years ago when we had to clean out our parent's home to sell after their deaths. They were in their 90's had lived in Belgium for a few years in the 70's, traveled a lot and had tons of picture scrap books, envelopes of memorabilia, etc and wow, it was just so hard to go thru and pitch most of it out. I did not care what their dinner menu was for a Greek Island cruise in the 80's. I'm completely sure they did not look at any of it after they moved it from FL to ID about 10 years before the end of their lives.

I do have some manila folders which contain my tour member rosters from my Rick Steves and Road Scholar tours (although they don't always give out roster any more). I have not looked at them in a long time...so I should probably go thru and thin those things out so my family isn't stuck with having to do so.

I try to journal on google docs while I am on a trip. I used to take a paper journal but went electronic when I was trying to save weight a few trips ago.

What do you do Kateja?

I’m low tech.

I’ve tried to do journals but after 4 days I don’t. This last trip, I made notes on my paper itinerary to jog my memory as I wrote my trip report. My trip report is long and detailed with portions that were not posted to the forum. I also bookmark websites and put them in files by trip or city. Same with confirmation and information emails.

This year was the first I only took pictures using my phone. My camera stayed home to save weight. I captioned a lot of them on the phone so when I downloaded to my computer I could remember where I went and what I saw. The computer pictures are then put into a computer trip file and 2/3 are deleted from the phone. Last year I didn’t caption the pictures and probably will never remember all that I saw and did.

I have a pile of scrapbook supplies that I will never use, it was my intention to have a nice neat physical scrapbook for each trip but it’ll never happen.

Our daughter recently got my wife a Skylight photo frame. Looks like a traditional photo frame, but displays a slideshow of whatever photos you add to the list.

She likes it because it's not complicated. She just emails photos to an address, and the frame does all the work.

I have come to really like photobooks that are created online, printed, and shipped to me. A middle-aged peer with whom I travel has done that for trips for some time, and he did it for the 4 trips we have taken together. When I started traveling with a 19-year-old last year, I created a book for him to document his first trip to Europe. He loved it. I gave him another for this year's trip.

I have a library/study in the bonus room over the garage that has 4-foot high shelves around the walls -- perfect for setting out small items that have been picked up on trips. I also usually get a Christmas ornament everywhere I go, which makes decorating the Christmas tree a time that is full of memories.

Like Allan, I like to write trip reports for this site, too, and I will sometimes go back and read them. See my profile -- there are a handful linked there.

Like Allan, I write a trip report for this forum - both to share info for other travelers and to print a copy to save.

I rarely buy a souvenir, but the few ceramic pieces in my home are sweet reminders of a special location that I enjoy each day.

When 2020 stopped all travel, I had seven 16x20” canvas prints made from favorite photos of Spain, France, Italy & Germany. I grouped those on my home office wall along with a framed cooking class certificate, small Venetian painting & French style wood tile. They’re great inspiration when I’m spending hours at my desk planning the next trip!

I make an on-line printed photo book for each trip six months after the trip. They’re in our living room bookcase with one in rotation displayed to show the front cover. I look through them a couple of times each year. I agree with Pam that my kids will not be keeping them after I die - have already told our kids to plan to throw them. The special memories brought back by photos are enjoyed by those who were in the trip.

Something significant I forgot to mention - memories stored by our senses:

When I’m traveling, I often take cooking classes. I’ve made a lot of homemade pasta dishes and French croissants at home! The experience brings back great memories of the country, city & chef’s conversations - both culinary & cultural. Plus, recreating the food exercises the sense of taste memories, too. 😊

One more sense memory - I’ve acquired music that I’ve heard on trips. I can sit down at the piano and instantly “be back in Cremona, Italy”.

We take lots of photos - when back home we delete the poor shots and duplicates, and then pick the best and/or interesting to make an album on Flickr, which we often look at ourselves. We also both keep journals - food and walks by D, and fluffy bits by me. Finally being too of us we often talk anout past holidays.

I do Shutterfly books, and I definitely look through them regularly. It's a great way to relive adventures when it's rainy outside. When I take pics on trips, I do it fast and put the phone down to return to the actual moment. I try to include our faces in most in them, to entice our kids to not toss them when we are gone (but if they do, that's ok.)
Also - souvenirs. We like to buy small things that we'll use (candles, t-shirts, good art) which keep the memories alive. My current favorites: the sunblock I bought in Florence - I remember the drugstore where I bought it, each day when I put it on. And, a little figure we bought at an art show in Beaune last year. She sits on a living room shelf and regularly reminds us of where we found her.

Since we started traveling internationally in earnest about a decade ago, we have created a Shutterfly book for each trip. We enjoy making them and looking through them on occasion (did a lot of that when no travel was possible in 2020!).

Pam and Jean - I’ve already told our two daughters that they can do whatever they want with any of our other stuff after we’re gone. My one request to them was that each of them keep a few of these Shutterfly books so they can peruse through them every so often and remember how much we enjoyed ourselves. Of course right now there’s only about a dozen of them. Hopefully there will be a few dozen more before that time comes 😃.

We use our phones for photos 99% of the time. We made shard albums on that so everyone who is o noted trip can contribute. I have been using Mixbook to make albums, which I really like. They are small and take up minimal space, and we do go back and look at them.

The majority of what hangs on our walls are prints from various trips. Some are ones we bought, others are my photographs that I had framed. We have two bookshelves in the family room and the Mixbook albums are in there along with a few special things from our travels. So a quick glance, and there are instant memories.

We try to not just take photos, but to also just enjoy seeing what we are seeing. Most recently was the volcano in Iceland. We did the hike and then sat there for about 30 minutes just watching it in awe. I took about a dozen photos was all, and my husband did a couple video's, then we put the phones in our packs and just enjoyed the experience.

On this latest trip I brought along my dads old professional SLR. I have not used it in years, so stuck to the auto setting. I am really curious to see how the photos will turn out. The camera shop said film is making a big comeback, so what used to be a 3-4 day turnaround is now 2 1/2 weeks. I am keeping my fingers crossed for a good photo of the puffins to frame and hang on the wall. We shall see;)

As pointed out above, lots and lots of photos, ie, point and shoot, street scenes as well as the sites, and other numerous reminders,

lots of postcards sent back home plus my calendar notebook for each trip with jotted down notes from that trip, eg, linguistic expressions in French and German, future train connection routes, bus routes, (as I pleasantly found out this time in France re:

Troyes ) tips on eateries, future trip destinations and sites, etc, etc. No real journal per se as though it were a book.

I like Pam’s question… “What do you do Kateja?” I’m interested too, how you do it Kate? : )

I take photos with my mini Pad.. I am an amateur photographer who takes some pretty good photos. I wish that I could afford an iPhone but I can't. I have a Samsung Galaxy which is just ok. I seldom take pictures with it..

While on my trip, I post a few pictures on Facebook but when I get home, I begin to create albums and post my albums on Facebook. Sometimes I create slideshows.

Besides Facebook, I post photos on Instagram and other sites such as cruise critic, I send some pics to friends.

I use my photos as wallpaper for my computer.

In October, I will be taking.a trip to Europe and plan to review it on Rick Steves. I already do reviews for booking.com, trip adviser., cruise critic and Norwegian Cruise Lines.

Now and then, I do a review for other sites.

I love looking at my photos. Sometimes I see things in my photos that I did not really catch when on the trip. I did not realize how beautiful a particular place was until I looked at my photos. Sometimes I think to myself "did I really go to this place"

My photos are my memories but discussing the places that I went and posting reviews is also another way of remembering.

I use Shutterfly to make a "trip report" with the photos, interesting facts, names of places and restaurants and then print out the book - it only has the best photos of the trip, not the dozens and dozens that I take....and then I wait for Shutterfly to have a "free pages" sale and print the book in hardback with the years and places on the spine...

It is a fun way to look at the photos and remember the fun without having them on my phone or computer.

I am working on photography skills and how to better use my camera. When travelling I download what I’ve taken to the iPad and delete photos that didn’t turn out. I try to do this every evening or two of the trip.

If I can find a quality keepsake small album during the trip (I have found some beauties in Italy and Paris), I will use it for a photo album or I buy something simple when I’m home. They hold 75-200 photos depending on what I buy based on how long the trip was. This forces me to choose the best photos of the trip as a sampling; I do a brief description for each.

All my photo albums are stored in one small cupboard so not an overwhelming amount. But I do appreciate the challenge of collecting too many after I too had to clear out parents’ travel collections. In my case it was thousands of slides and photos.

What do you do Kateja?
I upload them to my computer, and put the latest trip on a scrolling screen saver.
But as I am older now, and solo, I tend to go back to the same places, so I don't have trouble recognizing the locations.
Not so when I did the RS Switzerland tour! Oh how I wished I kept a journal.

It is so interesting to hear all of these different ways to keep and share memories! I like to dictate into the Notes app to remember details from the day, but sometimes it’s a pain to go back and correct all of the auto correct inspired errors.

I make sure I have the location turned on in my phone, which I don’t do it when I’m at home. Then you get the GPS tags on the photos. I do really like the idea of adding captions to the photos on your phone, tapping that i in the circle info button for iPhone users. I enjoy making Shutterfly photo albums, and then waiting for the free, unlimited pages deals to get them printed. But I am behind a few trips on that project path! We recently printed 20 8 x 8 photos to post on the wall of our dining room of European travel highlights, and three large canvas prints for another room. Thanks to an awesome 70% & 80% off deal at CVS, this was an easy and affordable project with a big impact.

I like to get really slim Moleskine style soft cover journals to take on our recent trips, which have been carry-on bags only. (I found them at Target in multi packs, as well as on Amazon.) I make a trip calendar across the two page spread at the beginning, and jot little notes of where we are each day. Then I can write the details as we go through the trip in the following pages. I have found that using Micron or other fine tip waterproof pens is well worth it to protect against smearing with water damage, I also keep that journal in a Ziploc freezer bag in my backpack, just in case, along with stamps, and postcards to send. Along with the day by day record, I also keep a page for new foods we’ve tried, places we want to be sure we go, and phrases we’ve learned… One time I kept a list of all the gelato flavors I had tried.😀

Sometimes journaling gets overwhelming! So I will ask my husband to tell me his top five memories of each city we’ve been to, and I’ll do the same. Even those bullet lists are fun to look back at over time. And maybe that would make a great Shutterfly page, with the top five list in the center and pictures of those five places or experiences surrounding it? Maybe I’ll try that to help get caught up!😂

I love the idea of a digital picture frame or screensaver that would cycle through photos from any given trip. So many happy memories!

1. A blog (11 years and counting)
2. Screen savers on various devices, sometimes the latest trip, sometimes a curated collection from multiple trips
3. A slide show on the ROKU for the last trip
4. An extensive spreadsheet with plans as well as what we actually along with the financials and accompanied by extemporaneous notes so I can go back and see: What was that restaurant? Where was that hike? What train did we take?

I use those spreadsheets a lot answering questions here and for friends as well as planning trips back to the same places.

I blog every day (text and photos) while we travel. This not only enables others to travel with us virtually, but also serves as a great resource for reliving our travels months and years later. I just posted a link to the blog for our most recent trip (Germany, July 2023).

I first started doing this in 2018, when our daughter was still quite young—which meant we typically retired to our hotel or Airbnb somewhat early, and I had plenty of time for blogging in the evening. Now our daughter is older, so I sometimes find myself staying up later than I'd like; but I still only spend about half an hour on a typical blog post. And I find it useful to do when everything is still fresh in my mind.

I love making photobooks using My Memories suite software and Shutterfly to print. With the text I add, they also serve as a travel journal.

Example;
https://photos.app.goo.gl/AZZyB3c5DeNuNrMo7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZbqEi9TkLDCq9EYU6

When I first started travelling internationally in 1978, I was always disappointed in the quality of the pictures I took. They were nothing like the 360 degree view in my mind, so I stopped taking pictures.
I have a cell phone now that takes pretty good pictures, so I sometimes take a dozen or so on my trips. I rarely look at them, eventually delete them, but I remember the places and revisit them in my mind.
I travel solo, and am not on social media, so have nowhere to post them. Nobody has expressed any interest in seeing my pictures, but they want to hear about my travels. When my husband used to travel with me, he took pictures and slides and we never looked at them again. We would reminisce by saying “remember when….?”.
I admire all of you who go to such lengths to preserve your photos. It’s just not something that’s important to me.

I've always put together a Photo Album, snapfish.com, but with my 5th trip to Paris in two weeks I just decided that I would only use my iPhone 11 and take shots that peak my interest at the time. Most likely posting on Instagram at the end of each day for my family & friends to see. No real need or desire to do selfies at sites, I have plenty of photos of me from previous visits.

I always do a Shutterfly photo book (although I have found most people don't actually want to see my photos--they just want to hear I had a good trip. I have stopped making a point of trying to show my photo books to people unless they really ask to see them). I also take notes at the end of each day and write down what we did that day, where we stayed and where we ate. I keep a file on each trip too--brochures, ticket stubs, maps, receipts, cards, etc. I usually choose one photo from the trip that gets framed, and another photo from the trip usually ends up on a holiday card. I used to buy a lot of souvenirs--I felt like my family, close friends, and co workers all needed something from where I was traveling. I have really cut back on that lately. I now just buy maybe one or two exemplary items while I am on the trip. I used to buy a magnet on every trip too, but have now switched to stickers (that I put on my daily work planner). I also collect necklaces--the natural-looking kind made out of sustainable wood beads. I have them from all over Central and South America, Caribbean, and Hawaii.

I use a combination of ticket stubs in albums, photos, and a blog. I've framed quite a few photos via Mixtiles and have them hanging all over my apartment. My travel photos gave me hope during the pandemic.

I'm another Shutterfly fan. My problem is that long trips end up being two volumes. I purposely make the photos larger than they need to be, figuring that when I'm 100 and can't see very well, I will still be able to enjoy them. These days, not a day goes by when I walk through the living room and don't stop for a couple minutes to relive one trip or another.

I use mixbook to make a photo book. I get the big, 12x12, lay flat, hardcover books. We will go back and look at them periodically, but my kids are younger (teens) so I expect (hope) theyll look at them for many years to come.

i also buy a magnet and usually a small tchotke that I can display around the house.

I'm a big fan of souvenir refrigerator magnets, too! When all I did was carry on previously, that's all I could fit in my backpack!

I've never been a journal writer, so that's out. I do take pictures and post them to Facebook, but I lost all I'd taken last summer in a major device meltdown, so I won't necessarily depend on that in the future.

Things besides fridge magnets that work for me are T-shirts, linens, jewelry, shopping bags and a rare hat.

My favorites so far include:

A fridge magnet that's an image of a British WWII rationing card from Bletchley Park.

A T-shirt from the Vasa Museum in Stockholm with the Vasa on it.

A tablecloth bought at the market in Aix-en-Provence featuring olives and cicadas.

A ring with very early runes from Kirkwall that I wear daily. Mosaic earrings from Ravenna. Blue cameo earrings from Venice. A small Thor's hammer necklace from the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo that I wear whenever I leave the house. (Couldn't pick just one!)

A small shopping bag with sheep on it from the Cliffs of Moher in the Republic of Ireland.

A ball cap style hat featuring the red Welsh dragon on the national flag of Wales.

Every time I wear, use or see any of these kinds of 3D souvenirs I'm taken back to where they're from, what I experienced and how I felt when I was there.

I just wait for the memories to come to me - a movie, a tv show, somebody's post on Facebook... I'll take a random memory any day.

The best tangible memory I have is a hand sanitizer bottle that I bought in Girona, Spain for 5.5 Euros - something that would have cost 99 cents in the USofA at the time. The shape is unique and I still have and use it after 6 years. I will never forget the unspeakable filth of the bathroom at the Girona TI office that prompted this purchase.

I have scanned all of my pre-digital photos to the cloud...they are there with all my digital...about 28k in total. My echo show has access to my photos and randomly displays them. I love looking up and seeing a memory.

I like the way google sends me prompts saying here you were 10 years ago. There, out of nowhere it is. I was not even thinking about it, or where, or who. So it is a nice surprise. From that point you can see other years. Their search feature is good insofar as I can type in food and many many pictures of meals I have had around the world. Or beaches, trees, anything and I have it all given to me.
A far as writing goes, I use Evernote.

Lo
I also buy jewellery from the places I travel to. Mainly earrings, but occasionally a necklace or a bracelet. I like the idea of fridge magnets. They are where you see them daily, and would bring back my memories of where they came from.

I've recently started buying jewelry too, mostly rings. Nothing expensive.......$100 max. I wish I started earlier. But now I have rings from Montenegro, Germany and Dominican Republic that remind me of my trips every time I wear them.

Stay married to the person who remembers everything.

Great information! Thanks everyone. Last year I was on the RS 14 day best of Europe tour. I decided to keep a hand-written journal along with taking lots of pictures with my phone and camera. There was plenty of time on the bus for writing my journal. Every few days I downloaded photos to my tablet and I sent a few of the better ones to friends and family. When I got home I took a few days to write a travel blog that was close to 40 pages, including pictures. I sent the blog to a few friends and family. In the year since my trip, I’ve never opened the blog. However, I kept all the pictures on my phone and I look at them during my sleepless nights. The pictures help me recall my feelings and reactions to the amazing places I visited…. Like the American Cemetery outside of Florence, Dachau, Lauterbrunner and Paris. The trip was an incredibly emotional experience, and on those sleepless nights, the pictures help bring those emotions back! I’ll be taking the 14 day best of England tour in September and I plan to write a daily journal, take lots of pictures, and write a blog when I get home.