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My coworker Sarah crossed Fiji off her bucket list last summer. Since then, her desktops’s been randomly putting up screensavers of her most pleasurable travel moments—showing her splashing about the crystal clear lagoons, relaxing under the palm fronds and walking past the bustling local markets etc. This tropical walk down the memory lane keeps her mood uplifted, and prevents the workload from smothering her creativity. This is what conscious preservation and proper documentation of vacation trips and globetrotting journeys do for one. It serves as a visual balm during troubling times.
The main question is, then, how can you record your travels effectively and efficiently? Which strategies of collection and rendering can you employ without going through much hassle, whilst on the trip? And, what representative mementos should you choose over the others as the most quintessential tokens of remembrance? Stick with this post and your questions will be answered.
Capturing
Freezing a moment inside a frame, with the purpose of reliving it again and again, later on, is one of the best ways to document a journey. This visual and pictorial preservation contains the benefits of specificity and a panoramic explosion. In other words, you do not necessarily have to fumble around to jumpstart your reminiscence. Simply gaze at the captured shot and feel the reignited bliss of the last moment. There are multiple ways you can undertake this maneuver.
If you are adept at arts and crafts, you can paint the breathtaking scenes on the medium of your choice as a means of documenting your vacation. Missy H. Dunaway is an artist, covered by Bored Panda, who’s in the habit of recording her travels by painting in her portable moleskin sketchbook, using mainly acrylic ink. Her work is not exactly hyper-realistic, but impressionistic i.e. focused on the emotional tinge of the experience rather than the exact depiction of the scenario.
Other than this, you can choose the mainstream mode of capturing travel moments—via photography. Though anyone can pick up a camera and snap a photo, not everyone can encapsulate an entire experience in a single shot. You need to have a sense of the angles, the perspectives and the technical gear of the said camera in order to take a picture expertly and in your own unique way. Photographer Murad Usman became famous a few years back when the world stumbled upon his Instagram account. Why? Due to his iconoclastic style of taking ‘hand-holding couple’ travel photographs. Do check out his breathtaking work, ‘Follow me’, over your smooth internet connection, powered by the Frontier packages or some such deals. Gain inspiration before going.
Journaling
Logging your journey in the form of words or diagrams is another interesting way of documenting your vacation. It’s been done since the first explorer set the seas to discover new lands and undergo new experiences. At present, you can find thousands of personalized travel accounts both in the form of paperback books and the digitized blogs within your reach. The travelogue technique targets the imaginary sense more than the visual one for invigorating your past moments.
If you are a prolific writer and do not mind carrying a bound journal in your backpack, then choose this mode of recording your experiences. Write away at the time and place of your choice. Jot down your exact feelings, the color of the sky, the vibe, the scents, the music and whatever other factors (s) distinguishes that particular moment in that respective vacation hotspot. Arrange your entries in the form of bullets, lyrical prose or even Venn diagrams if that’s your thing. Most important of all, preserve your accounts carefully by wrapping the journal in a waterproof/fireproof/tearproof film.
However, if you are more inclined towards the digital side, then save your journeys either in the form of online blogs (Check: Nomadic Matt, Twenty-Something Travel, The Blonde Abroad etc.) or on the handy smartphone apps (Polarsteps, Day One 2.0, Lonely Planet Trips etc.).
Curating
This step plays into action after the initial recording of events is done. It deals with converting a haphazard collection of memoirs into a properly organized whole, ready for sharing throughout the social circles. Understand that not every photograph you capture on your travels is a master creation. The trip gallery is usually a mix of blurry takes and unimportant snaps. You need to filter these out and select the ones that represent your vacation the best. Similarly, not every little detail you mention in your journal is worthy of making the final cut.
This is basically what curation entails—a final portfolio of your expedition that is compact and pithy. In other words, a scrapbook, which can either be digital or physical. I would recommend you to go for the digital one because, A. it can fit multimedia of all sorts (songs, videos, pictures, gifs etc.), and B. it is easily shareable (as nearly everyone we know are a part of some online social media platform). Speaking of social media, once your travelogue is finished, upload it on the forum of your choice (only after your homeward return, due to security issues), and use the right marketing tactics to see how the online community flocks to your domain.
In conclusion, the next time you plan your trip to the desired destination, don’t forget to implement the aforementioned pointers for effective travelogue crafting.
