As soon as I returned from my first big adventure – backpacking in South East Asia – I immediately had itchy feet. And as jetting off again wasn’t an option, I instead set to work in documenting my new-found wanderlust in every way possible: a travel scrapbook, displaying artwork and various trinkets around my flat, re-purposing my trusty vests as pyjama tops, and of course, printing off copious amounts of photos!
Since then my flat has accumulated nods to all of my various trips – just last night I was scrapbooking snaps from my recent trip to Kefalonia. It definitely seems that craft projects and displaying mementos around my home are my ways of keeping my wanderlust at bay in-between adventures!
And this got me thinking, how does everyone else satisfy their love of travel between trips? Does filling your home with travel memories help you manage your urge to flee the country while you save for your next adventure, or does it have the opposite effect?
Please do comment with your ideas for keeping your itchy feet at bay – and also I’d love to see any scrapbooks and moodboards you’ve made! Below are some of my own travel memories and creations, plus moodboards created by other travellers which I love!!
My South East Asia scrapbook
This is the scrapbook I created after backpacking in South East Asia in 2013. Whilst there I managed to accumulate a mass of tickets, maps, visas, and even beer labels! Here are a couple of snaps of some of the pages – including a travel moodboard which I’d love to recreate in a wall-hanging version!
Photo displays and books
Much as I love my digital camera, I do miss the excitement of developing films from childhood holidays. So I make extra effort to print off my favourite photos and display them around my home. I love the different ways of creating photo displays – whether in a frame, collage format, or using pegs, string and washi tape.
And these funky photo frames are also great ways of showing off my wanderlust for everyone to see – plus the washing line frame makes it easy to swap photos around when I go on new trips!
I also love creating photobooks for each of my trips. With my scrapbooks I like to stick in the odd photo to complement the tickets and mementos I’ve picked up, but my photobooks are a blank canvas for showing off my favourite moments and views from the trip. My favourite books are CEWE Photobooks as their software is really intuitive and the books are always a fantastic quality!
Artwork
Much as I love displaying my own travel photos, sometimes you just can’t beat artwork from the countries themselves! Here I some bits and pieces I collected – the canvas of the Angkor Wat sunrise was hand-painted on site by a local.
T-shirts
If you’ve been to Asia then you’ll be familiar with the amount of novelty vest tops you accumulate throughout your trip (not mentioning the patterned travel trousers!) Whilst it may not be warm enough for the vests in England, they make great PJ tops!
Jewellery and trinkets
Much as the friendship bracelets are mocked nowadays (Gap Yah!), they are quite fun to where while you’re out there as they remind you of the different places and people. I also collected a little trinket from each country and a marble elephant necklace to remember my time at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand.
Moodboards from other travellers
I love these moodboards fellow travellers have put together!
wanderingrach, December 2015
All photos are my own unless otherwise stated.
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