Your time abroad will go by so fast, and before you know it, you will be back at home looking back on all the memories you had. With around 40 people in our group, I have seen some creative ideas people have had to remember their time abroad. Of course, there is always the classic idea of taking pictures (you can never go wrong here), but there are also a few other unique ways to document your time away from home.
The first idea is to take pictures (I just couldn’t leave this one out). My advice here is to try to get pictures of the scenery and moments along the way to look back on to remember your semester. When you get back home, you can print them out and hang them on a wall or use a photo book to look back on them. You could look up on your picture wall and see yourself dancing in front of the Eiffel Tower, being blown away on the Cliffs of Moher, or the stunning coastline of Italy. Either way, pictures are easy to keep up with during the trip and are fun to look back on afterwards.
The next idea I’ve seen (and been trying to keep up with) is buying postcards at every city you visit. On each post card, write down what you did in those cities and your favorite memory from each city. This also makes for an easy souvenir at each new city. You know what to look for at stores, and it will be available at nearly every city you visit. When your trip is finished, you can turn the postcards into a small travel book, and read about what you did in each city. My favorite thing is that this idea won’t drain all of your money in a souvenir shop, since most postcards are about 20-50 cents.
Another way similar to the “postcard journaling” is just keeping a journal. This is not something I normally do at home, so this has been the most difficult trying to keep up with it. If I get behind, I try to catch up by writing down a few days at a time. However, this has been one of my favorite ways to remember my time abroad. As I look back on a few weeks, I realize that I’ve forgotten some things, so the journal is a way where I can remember that memory with a short phrase or sentence I wrote down in my journal. You can also tape your train tickets, museum passes, or other small things in the journal, which adds more to the page instead of just writing.
The last idea and probably my favorite way of keeping memories is making videos. I use my camera to take videos, and then grab still shots from the videos. That way, I can choose the shot I like the most, plus it gives you a variety to choose from. On the train ride back from each city, I put together all of my videos to make a longer one of each weekend. I think this is one of the most fun ways to remember your trip because you’re re-watching your trip set to fun music.
There are so many ways to remember your time abroad, and you can’t go wrong with any way you choose. When you get to where you’re going, you might come up with a few ideas yourself after seeing what all of the souvenir shops are selling (key chains, postcards, backpack pins, or stickers). Either way you go, your idea will still bring up memories from each city as you look back on them.