Introduction
My beloved travel scrapbook is not just a compilation of pictures and receipts. It's a visual diary, a living art piece, that reflects the emotions, experiences, priorities, and personal growth I’ve navigated throughout my adventures.
My scrapbook allows me to remember the faces and places of those I’ve connected with. I also have full creative agency over how I celebrate and highlight the uniqueness of each trip. This scrapbook is always there, sitting on my bookshelf, whenever I want to reminisce on where I’ve been, who I was, and what stood out to me at various points throughout my life.
I wanted to walk you through how I built out the entry for my trip to Lisbon in early 2023. By outlining the steps I take for creating an entry, I hope to inspire you to create a travel scrapbook of your own. If taken care of, these books can stand the test of time and are fun, creative opportunities to weave together the tapestries of your adventures. So join me as I dive into the world of printed images, glue sticks, and crumbled receipts.
Find A Meaningful “House” for Memories
This scrapbook is from a small shop in North Carolina, where my family took annual vacations throughout my childhood.
I am a sucker for sentimentality, and this starts with the vessel I choose to store my travel memories in.
Each year throughout my childhood and adolescence, my family took a trip to a small island in North Carolina’s Crystal Coast. That annual tradition meant a lot to me and the people closest to me. So I thought it fitting to dedicate my first travel scrapbook to one I bought from a small shop in the area. Plus, this scrapbook just looks cool and eye-catching. It is handmade from natural materials found in Crystal Coast region.
You may want to dedicate one or two pages per destination. However, this book is fairly small (an 8 inch x 8 inch square) so I gave myself four pages per destination.
Gather the Right Tools
Scrapbooks can be as involved or low-key as you want. For me, I tend to keep things simple. My tools of choice are pretty much limited to glue sticks, tape, and pictures from my travels.
I order my prints from CVS or Walgreens and usually get images in a glossy format because I prefer that look. I also find that the glossy finish ages pretty nicely. In terms of size, I order 4x6 because my scrapbook is on the smaller size, and a 4x6 print gives me flexibility for including both full-sized images and cutting them up into collages.
Truly, there are no rules. Just embrace your creativity and start. You can always adjust your tools / process as you get the hang of it.
Capture The Valuable Memories
The key to scrapbooking is to take good pictures, but remember that “good” is entirely relative.
I’ve had a decades-long passion for photography. So, over time, I have invested in a quality camera that acts as a backup to the primary gear I use for my professional work. My backup cam is the one that joins me on my adventures. I’m also creatively inspired by walking around with my camera, and have honed my ability to capture street scenes and portraits on the fly.
But you don’t need the set-up I have.
“Good” pictures are ones that spark memories and/or emotion for you. If that’s selfies from your phone, then perfect. If that’s snapshots of the view from your hotel room, also perfect.
Whatever the images you take while traveling, dedicate your scrapbook to the ones that capture the essence of your trip. Those pictures will lead to the most effective entries for your scrapbook because they will spark memories for you years later. Also, aesthetics are great, but I think it’s important to document myself, too. So, I like to include at least one picture of me in each entry. That way, I can remember what I looked like at the time of my visit.
In the case of my Lisbon trip, the “essence” of that adventure was three-fold: food, stone architecture, and laughing with my dear friend Emma.
One memory that stuck out the most to me was our time wandering the grounds of Castelo de S. Jorge. So I wanted to dedicate a whole page of this Lisbon entry to that. Above are three pictures I chose to include from our time at the castle.
Consider the Paper Worth Keeping
I like to include my boarding passes and any significant receipts from my visit.
I understand that objects like receipts and boarding passes may seem like trash. However, I like to keep these items for scrapbooking. They’re virtually weightless and pack really nicely without ripping. I usually pack a book with me for plane rides so I’ll store my receipts and boarding passes in the pages of my book. Also, these papers act as great “evidence” of where I went and what I chose to spend money on.
For example, Emma and I bought leather gloves from a Portuguese artisan who molded each pair to our specific hand measurements. I wanted to remember that memory so I saved my receipt and cut out the name and location of the shop. I’m glad I kept the receipt because, if I ever wanted to return to this shop that was so special, I’ve got a head start.
Another idea is to save a paper bills or coins that went unused while you were abroad. This currency isn’t useful once you get back home and, if you were to ever return to that international destination, you can rest assured that any relevant currency is waiting for you in your scrapbook.
Collage it up, Baby
Collages allow full freedom for creative expression.
I like to collage my pictures because of the creative freedom that allows. Also, I can fit a bunch of images on a single page by cutting them all to size.
Furthermore, collages don’t require perfection or an advanced creative eye. Chaos is kindof the point. So, if the idea of crafting intimidates you, a collage is a good place to start.
Personally, I do like to organize my collages into specific sections for each page. Above, you’ll see I dedicated the collage on the left to my time at the castle. The collage on the right includes snapshots of the shops we visited and the architecture that stood out to me as we wandered the streets of Lisbon.
Here I cut a picture of funky sidewalk into strips, which I used as a border.
Play Around with Placement
On one page in this entry, I decided to cut a picture of the funky tiled sidewalk into four strips, which I used to act as a border.
I realized, as I was moving around the full picture of the sidewalk and trying to decide where I wanted it, that the swirly patterns actually worked really well as a border.
In shifting up the placement, I was able to highlight a full print of my favorite image from the trip: a street scene in Lisbon’s Baixa neighborhood.
I finished this page off with a cut-out of the hotel we stayed in, and a ticket from the public transport. I liked the look of using these two smaller images to sandwich the people walking in the main picture. It mimicked the feeling of walking through a huge crowd, which I was doing at the time of capturing that scene in Baixa.
Conclusion
Traveling to new places always leaves me with cherished memories and profound experiences.
Amidst the excitement, I realize that it’s all too easy to get swept up in the moment and overlook the importance of preserving precious memories. I’m still learning the balance between being in the moment and pausing for a beat to pull out my camera. This balance is even harder with all the modern pressures of showcasing the exciting places we visit in real-time.
That's where the power of a travel scrapbooking comes into play. My scrapbook is a tangible keepsake that allows me to relive these incredible moments time and time again. However, it requires intention. It encourages me to capture the essence of a fleeting moment in time, rather than filling my camera roll with what I think other people will want to see. So, in a way, scrapbooking promotes selfishness, but in the best of ways.
So I hope you can walk away from this article with inspiration and confidence that you, too, can create a secure and sustainable house for your important travel memories. I know I am so excited to, as years turn into decades, have a scrapbook I can relive my adventures through. Most importantly, I’ll be reliving them through the eyes and mind of who I was at the time of my visit. That’s much more valuable to me than likes on Instagram.