Preserving Your Travels in the Pages of Books

Ah, Travel!

There’s just something about traveling–seeing new places, trying new foods, experiencing how other people live. Whether you’re a city person visiting a small town on the other side of your state or an international traveler, travel gives you a taste of something new you can appreciate, learn from, and enjoy. I have been impressed by European cathedrals and by enormous petrified redwood stumps an hour and a half from my house.

Admittedly, not everyone is addicted to travel like I am. For some people, the best part of traveling is going home. I think there is certainly something to be said for the comfort of sleeping in your own bed, but experiencing something new is pretty amazing if we let it be.

The One Thing We All Do

One of the most common things to do when we travel, no matter the location and no matter the distance from home, is take pictures. We want to capture a vista or an experience or a moment that we know won’t last. We want to be able re-live it again and to re-love it again in the future.

The power of a photo is pretty astounding, if you think about it. With just a glance, we are transported back to another place or another time, able to be “with” people long-since passed or able to see that now-27-year-old as a spunky, chubby-cheeked 3-year-old. Isn’t it interesting what happens when we see a photo? The memories and the experiences come flooding back. That’s definitely the goal when we take travel photos!

But there’s a way to make it even better, to make those memories even sharper than just the photos alone.

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that memories fade, and that they fade even faster than you want them to (or think they will).

Find the oldest photo you have on your phone right now. When was it taken? Why did you want to remember this moment? What happened right before the photo, and right after? What’s a funny/interesting/neat thing about this photo? What’s the story behind the photo? See if you can write a paragraph about it.

Now find the most recent photo. I bet you could easily write a paragraph about the who, what, when, where, and why of it. That’s not because it’s a better or more meaningful photo. It’s simply because your memories of it are better.

Preserving Travel Memories in Pages

The 21st century has brought us some amazing things! (Yes, I know it’s kind of a mess around here sometimes, too.) The technology that allows us to take pictures at a moment’s notice also allows us to share pictures with a click, which really makes life richer, if we let it, because it builds connections. We can build connections with others and even in our own hearts. Preserving our experiences and our own stories has a lot of powerful side-effects.

While digital photos are easily shareable through email or text, printing them is an excellent way to really preserve them and to see them again and again. You never need an expensive gadget or a full battery to enjoy your photos and memories in pages!

And guess what. Preserving travel memories in pages doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. In fact, it is fun, as it very well should be! 🙂 With this pre-designed Adventure Anywhere template you see here, you can simply drop photos in the designated placeholders and add your memories (the text).

Adventure Anywhere cover

Adventure Anywhere page option

I love these (free) Create & Print templates for a quick and easy way to preserve travel photos and memories using (free) intuitive software that really just takes minutes to learn. Plus, the books are printed using the highest quality inks, papers, and bindings in the industry. The quality of the books is literally the best you can possibly get! Add to that a 100% satisfaction guarantee, and I know it’s time to get a move on and show you a couple more travel books you can create in a snap.

I just love this Beach Time template. I’m such a beach girl! *swoon*

Beach Time cover

Beach Time page options

You can see all the page possibilities (and make your own Beach Time book) here. The cover is designed this way, and you’ll add photos and a little text, but you choose each page depending on your needs and preferences. Want a page showcasing one big photo? Choose a page like that. Need a page with a lot of text? Choose a page like that.

The last travel photo-memory book option I’ll share today is called Let’s Go Travel. I know the cover makes it look like it’s designed for London because the colors are so perfect, but it’s really a generic vacation/travel book as you can see in the sample pages. See all the page possibilities at that link, too.

Let’s Go Travel cover

Let’s Go Travel page option

Remember, if you’re new to the Create & Print platform, you can see how easy it is to use by watching me make a page or two in this video tutorial. (Create & Print is the new name; it used to be called Design & Print.)

Another Possibility

I often recommend these wonderful templates through the easy-to use Create & Print platform because so many people are looking for a simple option for preserving their photos, memories, and stories in pages. Especially because it’s so important to make a record while memories are fresh, this option works well for a lot of people. However, if you’d like more flexibility on pages and the ability to create and design pages yourself (either from scratch or using blueprints), you might love Artisan digital scrapbooking software as much as I do. It gives me the creative flexibility to do this:

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I love that you WIN no matter what you choose! Getting your travel memories into pages your way makes it doable, fun, and fabulous.

A Pro Tip

Memories fade, so it’s smart not to wait too long to get your travels preserved in pages. If you can’t make an entire book in the day or two after you get home from a trip, that just means you are like 99.99% of us! Here’s my advice.

You’re going to be uploading your photos to your private Forever account in order to make these Create & Print books, so it makes a lot of sense to me to do that during your trip! In fact, I think it’s SO SMART because then those precious photos are safe in the cloud in case something happens to your phone! (You can read my first experience doing this during the trip of a lifetime here, if you want.)

So, before your trip, grab the free Forever app. Then watch the little 3-minute video here on uploading from your phone (iPhone and Android) to the app. You can even set the app to auto-sync and/or auto-upload if you want!

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I personally don’t have it set to auto-upload because I take so many screenshots and things I just want temporarily, but if you’d rather auto-upload and then delete those things from your Forever Storage later, you can. No biggie.

Here’s another pro tip. At the end of a day, back at the hotel, I go through the day’s photos to delete duplicates or photos I don’t love, upload them to my Forever Storage using the app, then I add a description. Straight from my phone, I can write, “This is the Cathedrale Notre-Dame-de Strasbourg. Our favorite thing about it was…” Because I’m doing that when those memories are so fresh, it makes it so easy for me to put not just the photos but the stories behind them into pages later. (Sometimes I even just copy and paste!)

Where Do You Like to Travel?

Are you a beach-goer? Do you prefer the mountains? Do you like exploring big cities or driving the countryside? Where have you been recently? Where do you dream of going? Do you have an oasis in or near your home for some R&R? Is there anything you like to include in your travel books? (I scan in tickets or take pictures of physical keepsakes and souvenirs.) Tell me in the comments!

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