Preserving your Travel Memories

Cover page of my 2018 scrapbook.

Remember the days when we had to drop the film off to be developed? We would go on vacation, take hundreds of photos, have them developed, and they went into an album. Today, we take thousands of pictures, and they stay on our phones or cameras. Some of us may upload them to a computer, but then what? Do you print them and add them to an album? Do any of them make it to a frame?

I was 6.5 months pregnant when 9/11 happened. We were vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard with friends. Like all Americans, we were stunned and shocked. I wondered how I could bring this child into this crazy world. It also got me thinking about how I would document his life and the lives of other children we may have over the years. This is how my scrapbooking obsession started. Each child has their own baby scrapbook and from there on I started family albums. What started off as 1-2 books a year, is now at 7-8 books! This is due in large part to all the traveling we do.

Utah 2009

I can’t think of a better way to preserve our travel memories than to scrapbook them. Each layout tells a story. I can look back on any of the 40+ albums and instantly be brought back in time. For example, when pulling pages out of the albums to photograph, I was reminded that Nicholas hated pizza when he was 3. We had gone to an Italian restaurant, and he ordered the pizza. He disliked it so much; he vowed never to eat it again. Well, 11 years later, pizza is his favorite food.

Another great memory, we stumbled upon a Veteran’s park while in Salt Lake. It was a beautiful memorial. Here we met a widow of one of the veterans with her dog. My boys fell in love with the dog, while my husband and I enjoyed speaking with her.

Typically, I run about eight months behind in my scrapbooking. Currently, I am working on summer of 2019. I don’t stress about it because it allows me to relive each moment or vacation when I am scrapbooking it. When I was scrapbooking Alaska, I had such a sense of calm looking at those photos. I can’t wait to scrapbook my Rhine River cruise and relive those moments.

As you can see, I love to scrapbook and have such a great time being creative. I have also taken to making canvases out of my favorite photos and hanging those around the house. It helps the memories last forever.

What about you? How do you preserve your travel memories?

About The Author

Heather

37 COMMENTS

  1. judean | 16th Mar 20

    I used to scrapbook and also sold Creative Memories. I have a tendency to get ‘bored’ with things after a while. I really don’t preserve my memories in that way. I just organize my photos and videos in the ‘cloud’ to look back at later.

  2. Beth Shields | 16th Mar 20

    How fun and what sweet memories you have and will be able to pass on. Love the books.

  3. Cora | 16th Mar 20

    Very neat way to preserve memories!! I hope I’ll have time to do some scrapbooking again when my little ones are old enough to tie their own shoes. 😀

  4. Holly | 16th Mar 20

    This is amazing! So many people use electronic storage and never take the time to enjoy or share personally, just through social media..thank you got a great reminder of the beauty of memory albums!

  5. jen | 16th Mar 20

    Oh I used to love scrapbooking. I guess in this digital age i’ve put that aside. It’s nice to have them though. Trying to figure out a way to do them in a compact fashion as I have a small living space bu would like to do them again.

  6. Jennifer | 16th Mar 20

    It’s a creative way to keep your travel memories

  7. Karie | 16th Mar 20

    I love scrapbooking. When my kids were younger we would have scrapbook parties and some other ladies would come over and we would let the kids play and scrapbook. I am bad now that the kids are older. Now most my photos sit on the storage as a constant reminder I am further and further behind. I really need to get going again. It’s so fun to look on scrapbooks and I think they also help my children feel extra loved seeing them in a book I crafted.

  8. Stacey Billingsley | 16th Mar 20

    It’s wonderful that you have all of these memories preserved so beautifully! I don’t usually have the patience for something like this, but I have tried in the past. Maybe my blog is my scrapbook now!

  9. MakingMemoriesInStyle Travel Blog | 16th Mar 20

    Scrapbooking is so fun! We just don’t have a lot of storage space so we utilize our photos on the cloud.

  10. Eva Keller | 16th Mar 20

    I like that mindset! There’s definitely no rush in getting it done right away. It’s good to take some time to reflect on your trip and create a scrapbook page that really speaks to how you felt about that trip.

  11. Debbie | 16th Mar 20

    You are so creative with your scrapbooking. I used to scrapbook and would put too many pix on a page! I wanted to remember everything. Haha Now I just blog and basically have online travel diaries. Still with lots of pix tho. Lol

  12. Lisa Manderino | 16th Mar 20

    It really is like a journal of your life! So cool!

  13. Lucy | 16th Mar 20

    you want to know what’s funny? I have a scrapbooking section in my office hoping that one day i actually get to make a scrapbook. I had started one a while back but only got through two pages 😅 it’s the lack of time but i do enjoy it. yours are lovely!

  14. Junell DuBois | 16th Mar 20

    How fun! I used to love to scrapbook. They make such great keepsakes.

  15. Tricia Snow | 16th Mar 20

    You are such a good mom. I never made the time for scrapbooking and now regret it.

  16. Cindy | 16th Mar 20

    I love to scrapbook. I have moved from paper to digital but I still love it.

  17. Sydney Delong | 16th Mar 20

    Since my son was born, I’ve been wanting to start scrapbooking! My mom scrapbooked as we grew up, and I love looking through them and reliving my childhood

  18. Karla | 16th Mar 20

    I loved scrapbooking! It eludes me now. But I do make it a point to print important pictures for the kids and keep plastic memory boxes for each child for each year. Bigger than a scrapbook, but the boxes get stuffed with the photos I print, plus tickets to shows, special art work, birthday cards and other memorabilia. I DO miss scrapbooking!!!!

  19. Sandi | 16th Mar 20

    My aunt keeps all our photos Ali s with scrap booking. Nice to have someone take up the charge.

  20. Tiffany | 16th Mar 20

    I love creating scrapbooks! You’ve done a great job and glad you keep it up!

  21. Lina | 16th Mar 20

    What a fun and creative way of preserving these memories! I love it.

  22. Kim Kay Blake | 16th Mar 20

    I have a ton of travel pics on digital. This is a more creative way to preserve my travel pics.

  23. Charlotte | 16th Mar 20

    These are beautiful pages. I’m jealous!!

  24. Christina Furnival | 16th Mar 20

    Scrapbooking is so fun and a great way to remember special moments

  25. Noelle | 17th Mar 20

    I am not very good about this at all! I need to get more of our vacations into books for my kids. Thanks for the reminder.

  26. Liz | 17th Mar 20

    It’s a great way to express your creativity! I have all of my photos backed up on a hard drive, but I print the shots that are the best and frame them around the house.

  27. Robin | 17th Mar 20

    Great ideas! I also love scrapbooking, but haven’t done it in a long time.

  28. Carmen | 17th Mar 20

    I was so happy to have ALL of my 4×6 photos in regular photo albums, but some of them began to fall apart. And now I want to digitize them, so I’ve taken them out of the binders and they are just in photo boxes. Sigh.

  29. vanessa | 17th Mar 20

    Such a brilliant idea. I struggle with crafty ideas, so this would be a challenge for me. One idea I had was to make a book of all my pictures by year – perhaps I could do a scrap book for one year. Thanks for sharing.

  30. Cathy | 17th Mar 20

    I’ve never gotten into scrapbooking. I still print off photos and put them in albums. I love what you have done!

  31. Adrienne | 17th Mar 20

    I love your scrapbooks. Every once in a while I start making a book but I rarely ever finish them! Photos definitely make those memories last.

  32. Kendra | 17th Mar 20

    I’m one of those that has tons of pictures in boxes or stored on the cloud. I’ve made a scrapbook page here and there but never stuck to the habit. I love that you have so many preserved pictures and memories!

  33. Suzan | It's My Sustainable Life | 18th Mar 20

    I miss having those physical photo’s and albums!

  34. Liz | 18th Mar 20

    I used to love scrapbooking! There is something so rewarding in saving little moments and adding stickers to the picture pages!

  35. jody | 19th Mar 20

    This is so neat and would be a great way to look at your memories whenever you want plus see all the cool pictures.I love doing stuff like this but just run out of time.

  36. Angela | 19th Mar 20

    I have so many photo albums, My husband says we need another shed!

  37. Lisa | 22nd Mar 20

    What a great way to put it all together. Scrapbooking is a lost art these days. I love thumbing through them later on.

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