How do you organize memories from trips?

[Deleted]

I just realized I need to do a better job of this.

I'm a "minimalist" so barely buy anything from my trips and always get rid of brochures, etc because I figure they'll just collect dust.

I recently got a dslr camera and took photography classes so want to get better about organizing my pictures.

Anyway, I just realized I'm probably going to see a bunch of temples, shrines, etc this week in Japan and don't want to forget everything.

Any General tips on how you record your memories from trips?

[starburst604]

I usually make a shutterfly album and weave little memories and stories into the pages with captions and text.

[rupertpenny]

I'm so bad about this. I'm like you @wandering, I don't want to hang on to "stuff" so I throw everything away.

I rely on my email archives way too much to figure out where I went and where I stayed. All of this is especially shameful for me since I'm an archivist and should be able to organise this kind of stuff.

I think what I'd do if I were disciplined is keep brochures/other info long enough so that I could upland and label all my pics appropriately. Then I'd throw everything away (maybe scam stuff that was super interesting) and make sure that whatever I saved was stored somewhere as permanent as possible.

[mrsd2006]

Ditto Shutterfly albums. You can add a clear pocket for the back cover to hold tickets stubs, things like that. I also buy post cards and put them in a photo album.

[marytini]

I always make a shutterfly album for each trip we take. And then, because I can't give it up, I still print photos and put them in an album (because I figure the photo book is only the highlights from the trip).

I also tend to keep a travel journal for international trips, and I toss ticket stubs, business cards etc into it as we go along. Just recently I stole this idea from Martha Stewart and adapted it for me. I store the journal from each trip in the box, plus small trinkets, leftover change etc.

My keepsake boxes

[dragon's breath]

When taking photos at a museum, cathedral, etc, in order to "title" that set of photos, I try to take a photo of the name of the place first. Either write it down on a piece of paper and take a photo, or take a photo of the sign (if there is one), the brochure, etc. Just something that lets me know the next photos on the card are all from that place.

I'm going to purchase Lightroom to actually help with the photo organization once it gets to the computer (you can "tag" by name, place, date, who is in the photo, etc, so you can search for "wandering" and find all the photos of yourself, "Japan" and find all photos you took in Japan, "name of museum" for all photos you took in a certain museum, etc-- but, you do have to create those labels yourself. It automatically allows you to search by date, lens, camera body, etc.

I don't do much for souvenirs, but do buy a magnet and Christmas ornament from each country.

I suck at writing a journal, so I send myself postcards with the date and "Day #x", then the details of what we did/where we visited that day. Then I mail the postcard home (I pre-print address labels, because I'm lazy). When I get home, I put all the post cards in a photo album, along with any ticket stubs, brochures, etc that I want to keep. It keeps everything confined to one book that goes on the bookshelf.

Depending on how long the trip is, and how many photos I want to print, I put those in their own album, or the same album as the post cards and ticket stubs.

We're doing five weeks in Europe soon, and while I'd love to buy a ton of souvenirs, I don't want to carry them. So, we'll do one or two "important" souvenirs (a nutcracker for my son from Bavaria) and ship them home, and try to stick to very small items for anything else.

[MauMau]

May 24, 2015 16:30:40 GMT -5 dragon's breath said:

I'm going to purchase Lightroom to actually help with the photo organization once it gets to the computer (you can "tag" by name, place, date, who is in the photo, etc, so you can search for "wandering" and find all the photos of yourself, "Japan" and find all photos you took in Japan, "name of museum" for all photos you took in a certain museum, etc-- but, you do have to create those labels yourself. It automatically allows you to search by date, lens, camera body, etc.

You can do this in Google's free program Picasa. Which is great for a novice. I don't use those features.

I take photos of signs and such to help with identification of things. I've been using Flickr to upload all my photos now. Tagging and placing locations. Then I can access photos where ever I have an Internet connection. Which is nice when someone asks about something. I can just search for the picture in an app.

[dragon's breath]

May 24, 2015 16:48:18 GMT -5 MauMau said:

May 24, 2015 16:30:40 GMT -5 dragon's breath said:

I'm going to purchase Lightroom to actually help with the photo organization once it gets to the computer (you can "tag" by name, place, date, who is in the photo, etc, so you can search for "wandering" and find all the photos of yourself, "Japan" and find all photos you took in Japan, "name of museum" for all photos you took in a certain museum, etc-- but, you do have to create those labels yourself. It automatically allows you to search by date, lens, camera body, etc.

You can do this in Google's free program Picasa. Which is great for a novice. I don't use those features.

I take photos of signs and such to help with identification of things. I've been using Flickr to upload all my photos now. Tagging and placing locations. Then I can access photos where ever I have an Internet connection. Which is nice when someone asks about something. I can just search for the picture in an app.

Thanks!  I do photographs in raw+jpg, and am ready to upgrade on my regular computer (have Elements 12, but like how LR does a lot of stuff, so want both), but that would probably work perfect for the chromebook I'm taking on vacation with me.

[Deleted]

These are all great ideas! I especially love the shutterfly album idea. I think I'll definitely do that for this trip.

I learned how to use Lightroom in my photography class, so I do plan to purchase it. I need to get on top of that.

I also like the post card idea. I had been collecting currency from every country, but it got stolen   So I think I'll just start over and then add post cards from here on out. Something easy and light to carry. 

[thebulldog]

I do a Blurb album from big trips....i find the online program much easier to customize than the others.

I usually put up a few favorite photos too in a frame. From beach vacations we have jars of sand with a seashell in it.

Sent from my SM-G900P using proboards

[mrsd2006]

May 24, 2015 16:30:40 GMT -5 dragon's breath said:

When taking photos at a museum, cathedral, etc, in order to "title" that set of photos, I try to take a photo of the name of the place first. Either write it down on a piece of paper and take a photo, or take a photo of the sign (if there is one), the brochure, etc. Just something that lets me know the next photos on the card are all from that place.

I'm going to purchase Lightroom to actually help with the photo organization once it gets to the computer (you can "tag" by name, place, date, who is in the photo, etc, so you can search for "wandering" and find all the photos of yourself, "Japan" and find all photos you took in Japan, "name of museum" for all photos you took in a certain museum, etc-- but, you do have to create those labels yourself. It automatically allows you to search by date, lens, camera body, etc.

I don't do much for souvenirs, but do buy a magnet and Christmas ornament from each country.

I suck at writing a journal, so I send myself postcards with the date and "Day #x", then the details of what we did/where we visited that day. Then I mail the postcard home (I pre-print address labels, because I'm lazy). When I get home, I put all the post cards in a photo album, along with any ticket stubs, brochures, etc that I want to keep. It keeps everything confined to one book that goes on the bookshelf.

Depending on how long the trip is, and how many photos I want to print, I put those in their own album, or the same album as the post cards and ticket stubs.

We're doing five weeks in Europe soon, and while I'd love to buy a ton of souvenirs, I don't want to carry them. So, we'll do one or two "important" souvenirs (a nutcracker for my son from Bavaria) and ship them home, and try to stick to very small items for anything else.

Postcard idea is awesome! I always buy postcards but don't actually send them, just put them in a photo album. 

[neonpink]

I make Blurb books. I sort of make digital scrap books. I take all the ticket stubs, brochures and maps scan them and then add them in along with my pictures. I've also taken to bringing a journal and writing in it at the end of the day. It makes making those books easier to recall when we did what. I have big books for large vacations and little 8.5x11 for small ones.

[osumelissa]

All of my pictures on the computer - I pick a few and get them printed and framed for either work or home. For our trip a few months ago to Europe, my boyfriend made me a shadowbox that is now hanging in my living room - he used photos he took to form the letters of "BERLIN" and then included some tickets, brochures, etc in it. It came out really good. Apparently he got the idea on Pinterest

[Champagne Supernova]

I used to scrapbook but I've been lazy so everything (such as maps, tickets, hotel room key cards etc.) ends up inside an envelope with the city name and date and the envelopes gets stashed inside a box.

On my computer, I have folders full of pictures. Folders are arranged by dates with subfolders arranged by cities.

I wanted to tackle the shadow box and actually bought stuff but yeah, the materials have been sitting inside the guest room closet for a year now.

[SJ]

We keep all of our photos on Flickr- it's free and holds up to 1TB. I have all my pictures since 2004 or so on there, plus automatic uploads from our iPhones. When DH takes pictures with the DSLR he adds them there as well.

I do a yearly photo album (via Snapfish) with highlights from the year. Many of these involve significant travel.

We usually keep a little journal as well where we write down highlights, itinerary, where we ate, etc., but I want to be better at keeping these all together, or maybe even using one journal for multiple trips, etc.

[Deleted]

Oh and I found a new system. I'm keeping track of my itinerary on "notes" in my iPhone. It's helpful because I'm adding in little notes about directions/train we need to take, but it'll serve as a memory of the places we've visited each day. I think I'll do that from now on for trips.

[Deleted]

May 27, 2015 7:52:50 GMT -5 SJ said:

We keep all of our photos on Flickr- it's free and holds up to 1TB. I have all my pictures since 2004 or so on there, plus automatic uploads from our iPhones. When DH takes pictures with the DSLR he adds them there as well.

I do a yearly photo album (via Snapfish) with highlights from the year. Many of these involve significant travel.

We usually keep a little journal as well where we write down highlights, itinerary, where we ate, etc., but I want to be better at keeping these all together, or maybe even using one journal for multiple trips, etc.

A yearly album is also a great idea!

I have done absolutely nothing with my pictures from Africa/South Africa, ugh. It seems so daunting.

[mrsukyankee]

I use Flickr and make online albums for each trip (helps to organise the pics plus easier to go back and look at them). If I want, I can then use them to make a printed book (but I don't as I'll never look at a printed album). I've stopped buying stuff other than fridge magnets as I'm trying to simplify my life more.

[caddywompus]

I have done several Shutterfly books from some of our trips. But I always have a hard time narrowing down which photos to use, and it takes me a long time to make the books. So I always get the "free 101 prints" from Shutterfly (whenever they have the deal) and put them in one of the small 100 page photo albums for each trip. I have a whole bookshelf of mini-albums. I never know what to do with all the paper stuff (tickets, brochures, maps, etc) so I just put them in a big manila envelope, and label one for each trip.
For souvenirs I used to always buy a t-shirt (which I never ended up wearing) or a coffee mug (and we ended up with way too many!), so now I just buy a fridge magnet. And we always try to find a unique bottle koozie. I'm surprised how hard it is to find them!

[GilliC]

I've started doing a yearly album with a few photos from each trip. It takes a ton of time, though, so I have yet to sit down and do 2014.

I've also become addicted to FlightDiary.net and I've taken the time to put in all of my flights for the past 10 years so that I can explore the various statistics. Since I signed up, I've also started entering all the aircraft info for each flight as well.

I haven't been very good about it lately, but I used to buy a postcard and mail it home to myself. I'd either have my travel companion write it so that the message would be a surprise when it got to me, or I'd just fill it with lots of little notes, sketches, or quotations from the trip.

[SJ]

Jun 1, 2015 8:25:51 GMT -5 GilliC said:

I've also become addicted to FlightDiary.net and I've taken the time to put in all of my flights for the past 10 years so that I can explore the various statistics. Since I signed up, I've also started entering all the aircraft info for each flight as well.

Is the only way to do this to enter manually?

[GilliC]

Jun 2, 2015 9:03:53 GMT -5 SJ said:

Jun 1, 2015 8:25:51 GMT -5 GilliC said:

I've also become addicted to FlightDiary.net and I've taken the time to put in all of my flights for the past 10 years so that I can explore the various statistics. Since I signed up, I've also started entering all the aircraft info for each flight as well.

Is the only way to do this to enter manually?

As far as I know. There are some similar sites (here's a good review of several), and one relies on social media check-ins to auto-populate, but I rarely check in at airports, so that wouldn't work for me. I ended up picking FlightDiary because I liked the end result (color-coded map, statistics, etc) more than the other sites, so I was willing to accept the hassle of the data entry.

Apparently they used to try to populate data from the flight number, but it was hard to keep it up-to-date with flight numbers changing, so it seemed to annoy more people than it helped.

[SJ]

Jun 2, 2015 10:31:47 GMT -5 GilliC said:

Jun 2, 2015 9:03:53 GMT -5 SJ said:

Is the only way to do this to enter manually?

As far as I know. There are some similar sites (here's a good review of several), and one relies on social media check-ins to auto-populate, but I rarely check in at airports, so that wouldn't work for me. I ended up picking FlightDiary because I liked the end result (color-coded map, statistics, etc) more than the other sites, so I was willing to accept the hassle of the data entry.

Apparently they used to try to populate data from the flight number, but it was hard to keep it up-to-date with flight numbers changing, so it seemed to annoy more people than it helped.

Thank you! I was hoping for some sort of tool where I could enter my log-ins for each frequent flier account or something

[GilliC]

Jun 2, 2015 10:34:03 GMT -5 SJ said:

Jun 2, 2015 10:31:47 GMT -5 GilliC said:

As far as I know. There are some similar sites (here's a good review of several), and one relies on social media check-ins to auto-populate, but I rarely check in at airports, so that wouldn't work for me. I ended up picking FlightDiary because I liked the end result (color-coded map, statistics, etc) more than the other sites, so I was willing to accept the hassle of the data entry.

Apparently they used to try to populate data from the flight number, but it was hard to keep it up-to-date with flight numbers changing, so it seemed to annoy more people than it helped.

Thank you! I was hoping for some sort of tool where I could enter my log-ins for each frequent flier account or something

Nothing that smooth, but they do have a .csv import if you found it easier to type up the list in Excel, etc.

Here is a sample of the format:

Date,"Flight number",From,To,"Dep time","Arr time",Duration,Airline,Aircraft,Registration,"Seat number","Seat type","Flight class","Flight reason",Note,Dep_id,Arr_id,Airline_id,Aircraft_id

2006-03-23,CA,"Beijing / Peking-Capital (PEK/ZBAA)","Takamatsu / Takamatsu (TAK/RJOT)",09:15:00,12:20:00,02:35:00," (/)"," ()",,,0,1,1,,2292,2851,0,0

[meowmaps]

I keep a travel blog with significant narrative and pictures. It sounds time-consuming but I'm not traveling all the time so I only contribute to it 2-5 times a year depending on the number of trips. I've found that keeping little notes while traveling helps me to fill in the narrative when I get home. I have a great memory but often my H will be like, did we do this or did we see that?  And if we can't remember we refer to the blog.

[SJ]

GilliC I just entered all of my flights (well, maybe I missed a few) since I got married 6 years ago. 201 flights, so an average of 33/year. Fascinating data and I love the map.

Thanks for the rec.

[GilliC]

Jun 3, 2015 10:55:48 GMT -5 SJ said:

GilliC I just entered all of my flights (well, maybe I missed a few) since I got married 6 years ago. 201 flights, so an average of 33/year. Fascinating data and I love the map.

Thanks for the rec.

I want to see!

My best friend's mom once suggested that I create a pin map with string connections to show how I'd gotten to the places I've been. I thought that sounded like way too much work, so I was happy to find this so I could send it to her! But I've learned some interesting things. Like the fact that I fly Frankfurt->Oslo far more than Oslo->Frankfurt (which makes sense once it was pointed out, since the OSL-FRA flight is at 6:30 am and I hate early flights). I also fly through London a lot more than I realized.



PS - If you like planes or air travel, also check out flightradar24.com if you haven't already. I spend way too much time playing with that site and eventually bought the app. Depending on weather, the approach for the airport is sometimes routed right over the city, so I'll go out to the balcony and look up as an incoming flight passes overhead.

[SJ]

Jun 3, 2015 19:13:22 GMT -5 GilliC said:

Jun 3, 2015 10:55:48 GMT -5 SJ said:

GilliC I just entered all of my flights (well, maybe I missed a few) since I got married 6 years ago. 201 flights, so an average of 33/year. Fascinating data and I love the map.

Thanks for the rec.

I want to see!

Here's mine.

I have a lot more interesting international travel from before I was married. I only had the stamina to go through one e-mail address though   Hopefully I will slowly update the rest.

[GilliC]

Jun 4, 2015 14:07:34 GMT -5 SJ said:

Here's mine.

I have a lot more interesting international travel from before I was married. I only had the stamina to go through one e-mail address though   Hopefully I will slowly update the rest.

That's so cool! That flight to Singapore(?) must have been brutal!!! Was it non-stop?!

[SJ]

Jun 5, 2015 9:22:27 GMT -5 GilliC said:

Jun 4, 2015 14:07:34 GMT -5 SJ said:

Here's mine.

I have a lot more interesting international travel from before I was married. I only had the stamina to go through one e-mail address though   Hopefully I will slowly update the rest.

That's so cool! That flight to Singapore(?) must have been brutal!!! Was it non-stop?!

Great eye!

That's a SIN-MSP leg on the way back from Indonesia. I just looked at the itinerary again, and it does say "1-stop" but not sure where it was.