4 Unique Ways to Capture Your Travels
These days, precious family memories are stored away in our phones or “the cloud”. Photos have, arguably, lost some of their value and capturing truly special moments has been redefined thanks to social media. So our family has found a few unique ways to capture our travels now.
Over the summer, we traveled back to the states to visit family as we do every August. As I was relaxing one morning at my mom and dad’s house, enjoying some American coffee and oversized corn muffins, I came across a drawer filled with DVDs.
Home videos (transferred from old VHS tapes of course!) from when my sisters and I were little. As excited as I was to pull them out and show my own kids, I felt a tinge of sadness followed by guilt.
My three kids will probably never stumble upon a stack of old home movies.
Now it seems EVERY moment is captured and stored away in your Facebook/Instagram feed.
When do we actually reflect on these memories? When social media memory stories remind us to. Makes me sad!
It got me thinking about our little family of five. Since moving abroad to Barcelona and experiencing tons of amazing moments together, my and my husband’s phones are over loaded with images.
Like “bursting at the seams” type overloaded!
So I started thinking outside the box and coming up with more creative ways to highlight this special chapter in our lives.
If you can relate to this as an expat, traveler, nomad or DREAMER you’ll appreciate this list of unique ways to document your travels…
Mapping
Living in Europe, we take tons of little weekend getaways throughout Spain and beyond. One of our favorite things to do after we’ve completed a trip is to pin that location on our MissWood world cork map!
The kids have so much fun finding the country’s flag in the adorable little pinning kit MissWood provided and finding it on our map. What a fantastic way to engage them in a geography lesson at the same time!
And each time we pin a new country, we end up adding two or three more to our list.
Another company I’ve fallen in love with and am addicted to decorating our home with is Mapiful. Their marketing is ALL over social media these days so I can’t imagine you’ve never heard of them before.
The process is simple. Select your city, choose the look/design of it, determine if there is a special area on the map you want highlighted and you’re DONE! I love our map of Barcelona so much that now I’m determined to have a map created of the most special cities we’ve visited and start a collage at home.
Want 10% off your first MAPIFUL project? Use code CHRONICLE10
Journaling
As a blogger, I honestly LOVE a crisp new notebook filled with blank pages! Journaling might be a lost art for some, but what better way to capture the emotion after a new experience.
My 8-year old has started enjoying writing more this school year and I’ve caught him a few times writing down stories and memories in his secret code diary. It’s adorable to see and I hope as we continue to travel the globe together, he can make a habit out of journaling his adventures.
And if you feel like journaling is too old school for your taste, start a blog! I mean, you don’t have to be a professional writer or award winning photographer. Just start a free, low maintenance site through a platform like WordPress.com and have fun documenting your traveling stories.
Postcard Collections
Yes we DO this!!! It might sound tacky or touristy, but its become a little cute family tradition that started when my husband and I were first married!
On our honeymoon to St Lucia, we bought a postcard of the beautiful Piton Mountains. Photos just didn’t do justice to the beautiful scenery there – but a postcard did!
And since then, we’ve always sought out souvenir shops anywhere we travel to pick out that one special postcard which reminds us of where we’ve just been.
The kids have their own collections and postcard albums for safekeeping. They’ve come to really enjoy this little traveling ritual.
Christmas Ornaments
Another family tradition that has become super special to us is finding a special Christmas ornament in every new city we visit.
Not an easy task when vacationing in Lake Como Italy in June (ha!) but we miraculously found our ornament even then!
Our collection has grown so much over the last few years living abroad that we’ll need a “travel Christmas tree” of its own someday!
Unwrapping these keepsakes every holiday season is like reliving each trip over again.
If you like these ideas or have others to share, let me know! What are some family traditions that you have to commemorate your adventures together? Comment below to share!
