Capture travel memories on the way home

Document your trip while the memories are still fresh

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to capture vacation memories on your way home,
or even while you are still traveling. You might have

(00:26):
fewer competing demands for your time and the memories will
still be fresh. Being on vacation can be wonderful, but
even the best vacations only last so long. Fortunately, your
memories can last a lot longer, and they will be
more vivid and accessible if you do something to capture them.

(00:52):
Of course, that is easier said than done. We have
probably all had big intentions of writing page upon page
in a travel journal every night of a trip, or
making a vacation scrap book after we get back. But
after a full day of sight seeing you may just
want to collapse into your hotel bed, and once you

(01:14):
get home, the mountains of laundry and the backlog of
email may mean that by the time you have the
bandwidth to document your memories, the vacation seems like ancient history.
So here is an alternative. Use the trip home to
capture your travel memories. You are probably still mostly in

(01:37):
vacation mode. Everything is still fresh in your mind, and
if you are on a plane or a train, or
in the passenger seat of a car, there probably aren't
as many demands on your time as there will be
when you are back at your desk. Well maybe not
if you are entertaining a two year old on a plane,

(01:58):
but for my listeners without toddlers, this time can work
quite well. One quick thing you can do is to
go through your photos from the trip. Take a few
minutes to organize them, deleting the ones where your eyes
are closed or the weird one of that wall. You
could mark a few as favorites, or even send them

(02:18):
to a photo site to get started on an album.
I like Shutterfly, but there are lots of options. Shutterfly
will piece together the photos into an album layout, or
maybe you have an older child who might enjoy this task,
even if you are not planning to write the next
under the Tuscan sun. It is also nice to make

(02:41):
notes to solidify your memories of what you did and
what you loved. Write a few quick notes in a
Google doc of travel highlights or in a travel note
on your phone. This can be just a bulleted list
of highlights, or it could be something more extensive. Thinking
through each day and sea sequence can be helpful for
making sure you don't forget anything. Ask yourself, now, what

(03:05):
did we do Sunday? What did we do Monday? And
so forth. If you are having any trouble remembering, look
back through your phone's photolog or you could log into
your credit card account as long as you don't think
that will be too scary post vacation, and you will
be reminded of what you did. Win. I keep a

(03:26):
time log so I can just look back on this,
and my memories tend to bubble up pretty quickly. You
might decide to document your memories in a way that
is easily shared, which you could do on a blog
or on social media. Indeed, you might even start posting
the highlights before the end of your trip so you

(03:46):
can document it while it is happening. I know a
lot of my listeners follow the blogger known as Grateful
k That's Kae if you want to look it up.
She blogged about her recent tre to Hawaii while she
was on vacation. I loved reading about her family's experiences

(04:07):
chronicled while everything was still fresh. Now, of course, there's
logistics to think of here. I think she'd often get
up in the morning and write or take a few
minutes while people were busy with other things. As a reader,
of course, I'm glad she was sharing this, but I
suspect the immediate documentation was also for herself and her family.

(04:30):
With such an in the moment record, they weren't going
to forget a single highlight. If you've got a little
downtime on vacation, you might try to do the same thing.
Savoring your memories of a vacation can enhance your overall enjoyment,
but it's hard to savor things that you have forgotten.

(04:53):
Memories are freshest closest to the fact, So do your
future self a favor and capture your vacation memories on
the way home or even while you are traveling. You
will make the trip seem much more rich, even as
the time itself ultimately fades into the past. In the meantime,

(05:20):
this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Thanks for listening to before breakfast.
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com Before Breakfast

(05:49):
is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.