Beyond the Camera: 8 Fun Ideas to Capture Vacation Memories

Foreign face cream and postcards sent to yourself are among the hands-on ways to preserve trip memories

a collage of people looking at fabric, a postcard, a teapot set, and a person sculpting clay on a pottery wheel

Discover the many ways to enjoy vacation memories — and the health benefits of intentionally recalling them — including purchasing items you’ll use daily and enrolling in workshops that result in a DIY souvenir.

AARP (Getty Images,7)

Berit Thorkelson,

AARP

Published January 12, 2026

In this story

Now that we all carry high-definition cameras in our pockets, it’s easier than ever to snap vacation photos. Ironically, it’s also easy to forget them there.

It’s important to find more than one way to capture your vacation memories. Not only is it nice to relive your memories, but it’s also good for you. According to research, doing so helps extend the many health benefits of travel — particularly reduced stress and increased happiness. According to Psychology Today, intentionally recalling happy memories helps disrupt negative thought patterns, lower cortisol levels and keep anxiety at bay. Reminiscing can boost optimism, combat loneliness and cement our connections with others as we age, studies find.

“Especially if you’re older, you forget details, and when you come back, you want to relive it. That’s part of it,” says Karen Gershowitz, a 74-year-old travel photographer and author of books such as Travel Mania: Stories of Wanderlust. Finding ways to share her travel experiences extends them, she says, and allows them to inspire and live on with others.

Shir Ibgui, founder and CEO of the trip planning community Globe Thrivers, agrees. “I’m a big believer that travel shouldn’t just be experienced and forgotten,” she says. “It should shape how you live, what you surround yourself with and the small joys in your daily routine.”

Here, Gershowitz, Ibgui and other dedicated travelers share the different ways they keep travel memories alive, enjoyable and tangible for years, even generations, to come.

Make a DIY souvenir

Make-and-take workshops are travel activities with built-in souvenirs. Think: silversmithing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, or leather crafting in Florence, Italy.

Digital nomad Amy Poulton says that after years of collecting items that held few to no personal memories for her, she decided to learn how to make something at every destination. Among her favorite creations is the perfume she made at a famous perfumery in Nice, France, during an hour-long workshop that also taught her about the many nuances of scent composition. “Whenever I smell it, all the memories come flooding back,” she says.

Incorporate everyday items

Keep an eye out for little necessities that are easy to weave into daily routines and so make trip memories part of life at home. “I buy one meaningful local object from every destination, but something I’ll actually use,” Ibgui says. She has a soft spot for artisanal kitchen items, such as her handmade ceramic serving bowls from Istanbul and a traditional Moroccan teapot.

Lisa Pittman, a 50-year-old certified travel coach known as the Travel Docta, loves handmade jewelry and clothing, as well as toiletries found at supermarkets and pharmacies. Two favorite finds: a honey-based cream from Greece and black soap from Ghana. “Ordinary routines become small reminders of where I’ve been,” says Pittman.

Pen yourself a postcard

Dash off trip thoughts, whether an anecdote or a few disjointed observations, while you’re in the moment. The limited space takes the pressure off.

Casey Keller, who posts about her extensive travels on her blog, Wandering Everywhere, stores hers in a photo keepsake box. “A few times a year, my husband and I pull them out, look through the postcards and reread those captured moments together,” she says.

Keller used to mail them to herself, but finds that she’s not always up for finding a stamp or post office, so now she tends to slip them into her luggage. Some hotels will mail cards for you if you provide postage.

Save the sounds

The clamor of vendors in an open-air market, waves crashing against rocks, and a variety of Irish accents are all sounds Gershowitz has recorded on her phone. They transport her back to the places where she experienced them. “You can’t capture those things in writing or in photos, you know?” she says. She uses her phone’s free recording app and corrals the captured sounds into digital files named for their location.

Discover non-traditional art

Collecting artwork on your trip is a clear way to keep your memories front and center back home. However, don’t limit art to what you see in galleries and boutiques. Traditional accessories, interesting food tins, handmade home tools — literally anything that strikes you can be a treasure, whether used, framed or displayed in a place of prominence. Local thrift stores and flea markets are great places to find such nontraditional souvenirs.

Re-create the food

Enjoying local dishes and ingredients is an integral part of travel. Rather than just snapping a photo of your delicious meal, photo organizer Isabelle Dervaux, 64, recommends re-creating the culinary experience at home.

“Get a recipe book to learn more about the spices or special ingredients; try out some of the recipes and host a dinner for friends or family,” she says, noting that’s what she did after a trip to Hawai‘i. “I cooked many, many recipes with pineapple, papaya or mango from the cookbook I bought over there to feed my family after our trip, to the tune of traditional ukulele music.” It’s easy to buy what you need online, but finding ingredients at a local ethnic or specialty market when you’re back home can make for a fun trip.

Start a travel memory box

Collect tickets, receipts, coins, maps, coasters, brochures and stickers as you travel. Jot down immediate thoughts on them or any available scrap — Gershowitz likes hotel stationery, when available. At home, collect the souvenirs and noted memories in a small box, envelope or file folder to revisit each destination as you like. Other travelers — including the founder of the women-only trip-planning company Girls’ Guide to the World, Doni Belau — attach them in journals. “Your grandchildren will thank you,” she says.

Choose a visibile collection

Go with something you won’t tuck into a drawer and forget. Belau once spotted a hard-sided suitcase at baggage claim covered in destination stickers, for example. Holiday ornaments allow you to revisit your travels annually — if you don’t find one at your destination, create one from a vacation image once you’re home. You can also make it a goal to mine your phone’s camera roll for at least one choice image to print and hang within a set amount of time after your vacation. Build on your framed collection with every trip, creating an evolving visual reminder of so many happy travels.

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Berit Thorkelson is a travel writer and editor for aarp.org. She has also written for publications such as National Geographic Traveler, Better Homes & Gardens and The Minnesota Star Tribune’s travel section.