Documenting Your Travel Stories

School will soon be out for the summer, or is already out for quite a few of us, and so many people are getting ready for holiday travel to places new and familiar. No vacation is ever going to be exactly the same as the one before, so documenting travel memories is an important part of the trip! Whether you put together an entire album, minibook, or just dedicate a project to your travel experiences, sometimes all you need to get started (after taking photos, of course), are some questions to guide to guide you as you put your project together. Thinking about how you document your travels will help you get organized and make the process easier when you’re ready to take a seat at your craft table and get scrapping. We asked a few of our team members some questions (see list below) about how they document their travels, and here’s what they had to say!

  1. How did you plan?
  2. How did you choose your photos?
  3. Did you let your photos tell a story, or just pick your favorites (or both)?
  4. Did you do a whole album or just a few pages?
  5. Were you planning your memory-keeping while on your trip?
  6. Favorite trip/vacation, etc you've documented?

Amanda Caves

For our Disney World trip, I knew that I would accumulate a lot of ephemera (pamphlets, maps, fast passes, confetti, etc.) so I brought along two document envelopes to store those items so that they didn't get bent. I also brought along a gallon size ziploc bag to store other mementos that we gathered during the trip.

If you know me, you know I take way way too many photos. It's always hard to weed them out, so I ended up with a full 12x12 album of our Disney World trip. A mini album just wouldn't work. I tried to choose a mix of photos to tell the story: some with the boys, some without, some scenery photos, etc. I definitely let the photos tell the story, and ended up making a very large 12x12 album that is overflowing with photos and memorabilia. You can see it here, here, and here.

My absolute favorite trip was our Disney World Trip. I've also documented a Disney Cruise, a spring break road trip, and several trips to the beach. I tried to be sure to collect things that I knew would give my album more dimension, and I also made notes of everything we did that day (rides, shows, etc.)

You can see some more of Amanda's documenting in her profile! Below is a photo from a winter beach retreat this year.



Natalie Elphinstone

To be honest I'm not one for making too many mini-albums, but I am loving my Handbooks and Project Life albums at the moment so I knew that when it came to documenting our last family holiday I wanted to include it within the album I was already working on. Being a scrapbooker means I'm always conscious of taking lots of photos of ... well everything, and so it took a little while once I was home to go through the hundreds of shots I had taken and chose out my favorites from each of the key events. I printed them out and started making a Handbook spread for each of the different days of our holiday. Sometimes it was just one page, and other times it was a double spread. It just depends on how many good photos I had, and how much I wanted to say. See how it all came together in the end right here.


To finish off this post, here's a mash-up of inspiration from some other Creative Team Members!

Love the colorful photos of Geralyn Sy's trip through California, that she documented using Odyssey kits and add-ons.

Tracy Armstrong's love affair with NYC is a recurrent theme in her memorykeeping (and why not?!). Layout below uses Odyssey components (first photo) and Carolina Moon kits (next photos).

Dana Fleckenstein got in on Tracy's NYC love too, with this Card congratulating her imaginary move to the Big City. So fun!

Allison Waken documented a trip to the Ocean with Carolina Moon kits and add-ons. Love how she included a map!

Of course, more local trips deserve documenting too, like a trek to Nashville from Catherine Davis.

We hope you had fun looking through some travel documenting projects, and that you walk away with inspiration to get your past photos into your albums, or plan ahead for trips to come!

Have a great weekend!

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8 comments

  1. christinepalka says…
    05/29/2015

    Fantastic article @SaraV! Thanks for all your hard work compiling it!

    1 Reply 0 Replies
  2. CeliseMcL says…
    05/29/2015

    Thanks for the tips, I am leaving the end of June for a 3 week (+ ) road trip from the east coast to the west coast and back.

    1 Reply 0 Replies
  3. bookemper says…
    05/29/2015

    This is fantastic! Thanks for sharing. I am just finishing up the first of three trips this summer. I can't wait to document this past week.

    1 Reply 0 Replies
  4. SaraV says…
    05/29/2015

    Thank you so much @christinepalka, @bookemper, and @CeliseMcL! Your comments made me smile :) I'm happy to see people reading it!

    1 Reply 0 Replies
  5. pinksoup says…
    05/29/2015

    Beautiful! Now I have the small town blues.

    1 Reply 0 Replies
  6. supertoni says…
    05/30/2015

    This is perfect @SaraV I am getting ready to start a Travel album. Very helpful and inspiration-filled blog post.

    1 Reply 0 Replies
  7. toniatigre says…
    05/30/2015

    Love this post! I was just a little impressed nobody used that mini kit for road trips from last month!!

    1 Reply 0 Replies
  8. Msaula says…
    05/31/2015

    A wonderful post...love this!! It inspires me to get to documenting our weekend at the cabin. Even mini vacays deserve documenting!

    1 Reply 0 Replies

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