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9 low-pressure tips to organize vacation photos, travel memories + souvenirs

By April 17, 202032 Comments

If you do any googling or searching on Pinterest, you’ll find loads of ways to organize vacation photos and preserve memories from your travels. Look a little closer, though, and you’ll realize you have to be an artist and have hours of time on your hands to recreate what you find. Read on, though, for easy ways to family pictures from your trips—and all the other goodies you collect to hold onto vacation memories.

Any other busy folks out there? I’m raising my hand, too. (Even during quarantine, most parents aren’t brainstorming ways to fill their time. We’re plenty busy now, too.)

Truth is, you don’t need tons of time or art talent to create gorgeous ways to preserve your travel memories. You can organize your vacation photos, display souvenirs and remember what you did on that trip—just with a few minutes of time and, sometimes, a little planning.

That’s why I wrote this post on 8 ways to use all those ticket stubs, city maps and chocolate wrappers you stuck in your purse while you were on vacation. You know, all that stuff you told yourself you’d make into a scrapbook “someday.”

Well, someday has arrived, because you don’t need a ton of time to pull together these easy projects for vacation photo organization, souvenir display and more!

Travel art journal ideas: How to incorporate maps, photos, ephemera and other art supplies. To & Fro Fam

Here’s how to organize your vacation photos, display travel souvenirs and ensure you never forget the special moments of your trip.

This post contains affiliate links. When you click and buy, at no extra charge to you, I receive a small income that enables me to publish free content on To & Fro Fam.

What to collect for your travel journal: ephemera

“Ephemera” is the fancy travel journal word for all the small pieces of paper and whatnot that collect in your pockets and purse while you’re out of town. Instead of throwing all this stuff away, save it! Ephemera make a phenomenal addition to these projects to organize vacation photos and travel memories.

Not sure what to keep and what to toss? As a general rule, I look for things that are visually interesting. Color, pictures, interesting fonts, anything with a cool logo on it, unusual shapes—these are all factors for ephemera that will add to your travel journal or other vacation memories project.

Travel journal ideas: 8 ways to organize vacation photos, ticket stubs, maps and more in an artistic way—that doesn't take hours or artistic skill! To & Fro Fam

Here are things I typically collect for my travel journal and other projects:

  • ticket stubs
  • boarding passes
  • maps
  • food labels or wrappers (clean, without any food on them, of course)
  • menus
  • to-go coffee sleeves
  • pages from a local newspaper
  • pictures from local tourism magazines
  • brochures
  • receipts
  • coasters

Remember, too, that once you’re ready to put travel ephemera into your project, you don’t have to use the whole thing. So if you have a trifold brochure from the museum, consider cutting pieces of it for your travel memories project. If you saved the bag from the baguette shop, you might want to just rip off the logo stamped onto the paper.

There is no right or wrong with travel journals and other projects to keep your travel photos and memories. So no pressure—just fun!

Easy projects to organize vacation photos + more

Remember your vacation forever with these 9 easy ideas for travel journals. Finally organize your photos, ticket stubs and other papers from a trip! To & Fro Fam

1. Vacation smash book

Smash books are like the busy person’s scrapbook; vacation smash books are a way to corral all the stuff you pick up on vacation without putting in the time of a scrapbooker. No need to have fancy scissors, die-cut punches or a trillion kinds of decorative paper! That’s right: You don’t need any special supplies—or hours of free time—to make a vacation smash book.

Simply glue or tape all the bits and bobs (also called “ephemera,” if you want to get fancy) into a notebook. When you get home, print some images to add in.

Travel smash book ideas: Ways to organize vacation photos, ticket stubs, ephemera and more. 8 fresh ideas! To & Fro Fam

One of my favorite, super-easy smash book techniques is to take a map and glue it to the whole page. (Most places that see tourists have plenty of spots to pick up free maps.) Then you have a visually interesting background to glue onto.

Level 10 travel tip: Bring along an envelope or one of those coupon organizers to keep all the little papers and stuff tidy. If all the ephemera you want to use is in one place—instead of scattered between your carry-on, suitcase and purse—it’ll be easy to pull it out and make a travel smash book when you get home.

2. Vacation photo books

When you get home from a trip, make a photo book of all your vacation pictures. It’s like a highlight reel of the best parts of your vacation.

I do this with Shutterfly. This photo book company gives you credits for one free 6×6 photo book per month. (You can get a free 8×8 photo book with this link, too!)

The important thing here is to get photos off your phone and computer. When your vacation pictures are in a photo book, you can actually look at them with your family. My kids love looking at our vacation photo books!

Level 10 travel tip: Don’t wait until you get back home to make a vacation photo book. On the last day of your stay, or while waiting for your plane home in the airport, pull up an app or bust out your computer and make one! That way, you’ve created a vacation picture book before you get caught up in the busyness of life after your return. Plus, that reminder of your vacation will arrive just a few days after you get back—beating the post-vacation blahs.

3. Planner vacation collage

When I go on a trip, those days in my planner used to stay blank. After all, I didn’t have work to-do lists or meetings filling my days when I’m on vacation! (Thank goodness.) So I started filling those spots in my planner with a vacation collage, made of all the things I’d collected on my trip.

(I use a Happy Planner similar to this one. I love how it lays flat, the grid format and all the cute stickers you can get to fancy it up!)

I usually take about 45 minutes one night after my trip to stick in the museum ticket stubs, maps, brochures, tea bag labels and everything else I squirreled away during my vacation. Don’t they turn out wonderful?

Making a vacation collage in my planner gives me a handy way to look back on those memories when I most need them: When I’m busy bulldozing through my work to-dos. Remembering my trip gives me an extra boost of energy and happiness I channel into my work, earning more money for our next vacation!

Finally, I love that making a planner vacation collage reflects the fullness of my vacation days.

4. Send yourself a post card

Remember how I’m a huge, huge fan of sending post cards? Sending yourself a post card is a wonderful way to record memories from your vacation.

Buy a handful of post cards when you’re out and about. Then take 5 minutes to write yourself one. This can be while you’re waiting for your food at a restaurant, while you’re lounging by the pool or during my favorite time to write post cards—on the plane ride home.

Want to remember your vacations? Write a post card to yourself—and then mail it. You'll have a souvenir that'll help you never forget your trip! To & Fro Fam

My kids are getting into writing post cards too! They dictate to me what they’d like to write, and as you know, they love getting snail mail.

Not sure what to write? Here are some ideas:

  • Your highs and lows
  • What you hope to remember forever and ever
  • Something that surprised you
  • Something that challenged you
  • A list of what you did one day
  • A quick sketch or drawing of what you see while you’re writing a post card

5. Make a travel art journal

When I travel, I love bringing along a small art journal and a travel art journal kit. I feel most inspired when I travel, which isn’t a big surprise, since research shows travel makes you more creative.

So I take 30-45 minutes a few times on a vacation to work on a travel art journal. I use pieces of tickets, maps, labels and such from my trip and combine them with magazine pages, paint and even string. I love looking back on my travel journal pages. They bring me right back to the moment when I created them.

Level 10 travel tip: When you’re exploring, stop at a used book shop. Buy a small used book with a pretty cover. It doesn’t matter if you can, or want, to read it. Use it as your travel journal notebook instead!

6. Vacation shadow box

What if some of the things you collected are big or bulky? They won’t fit in a vacation smash book—so create a vacation shadow box instead.

For around $10 at craft stores or here on Amazon, you can buy a shadow box—like a picture frame except with the space to display thick items.

Print out some of your vacation photos and display them at the back of the shadow box. Then put in everything else—a seashell, a carving you bought at a souvenir stand, a paper fan, anything that reminds you of your vacation!

I love this because it displays your vacation like a piece of art. Instead of sticking that piece of driftwood or a jar of sand in some drawer, you put it out for everyone to see.

7. Kids vacation memory book

This one requires a tiny bit of forethought but otherwise it’s super easy. Just bring along cardstock or other sturdy paper cut in 4×6 rectangles. Most craft stores have these papers pre-cut.

Then, when you’re on vacation, ask your kids questions. Write down their answers on one side of the paper.

Finally, when you’re home, print a bunch of photos from your trip. Using craft glue, secure the photos to the backs of the papers with your kids’ memories written on them.

Your kids might also want to make drawings about the trip on some of the papers.

Your last step is to bring the stack of pages to a Kinko’s or other office supply store. For a few bucks, they’ll bind it into a book! Your kids will love that their faces and words appear in an actual book.

8. Family travel journal time

Want to encourage the whole family to record travel memories? Buy everyone in the family their very own travel journal. This doesn’t have to be fancy! I love these blank kraft paper notebooks because you can buy them in a bunch (so everyone gets the same one), the covers are easily customizable and there are only 30 sheets in each one. That means no one feels pressured to fill it with pages and pages and pages.

Then take 15 minutes every day to work in your travel journals as a family. Even if your kids can’t read and write yet, they can draw or collage in their book. Ask them if they want you to write for them or label what they’ve created.

You can even have a travel journal prompt to spark everyone’s creativity. Ask if there was something they learned, or show everyone an art technique. For example, they could draw what they see out a window, or sketch something without lifting their pencil from the paper.

Level 10 travel tip: Make kids their own travel journal kit. Ideas of things to include: Washi tape, scissors, glue stick, markers, watercolor paints.

Bring the travel journals on all of your trips together. When they’re full, you’ll have a gorgeous record of all your family vacations!

Travel art journal ideas + 7 other ways to organize vacation photos + ephemera. To & Fro Fam

Minimal work travel scrapbooks

I’m not about to spend three hours on a single page of a travel scrapbook, but I do love handwriting and actual, physical photos. I found a way to make a physical scrapbook without a time commitment with Project Life scrapbooks.

This system has clear plastic sleeves and perfectly sized, pretty papers where you can add a bit of pizzaz to the pages and write down memories. Then you add photos—and have a scrapbook page in minutes.

How I make an easy travel scrapbook in mere minutes, plus 8 other ways to organize vacation photos and more! To & Fro Fam

I use the Wander Edition Core Kit, which is all about travel (naturally). Another thing I like about the Project Life scrapbooks is that these little cards are small—therefore portable. So I bring them on family vacations and jot down notes, what we did on a given day, funny things Max and Edie said, anything.

Throughout the trip, I “favorite” some of the best photos I take on my phone. Then on the last day of a trip, I print these favorite-d photos on Amazon Photos. They arrive in my mailbox a few days later.

That’s how I take vacation photos and memories and organize them into a scrapbook we love to look at.

Get out there and record your memories!

I’m not a big gambler—casinos seem like a giant waste of money to me—but I’d wager you’re feeling inspired by these tips to make travel journals and other easy ways to organize vacation photos! Not only do you have ideas on how to use up the pictures, souvenirs, ticket stubs and other things you collect on vacation; you also feel like these travel journal ideas are doable.

After all, you don’t need a ton of time to pull these together. You just need some paper, a little glue and a little creativity—and your vacation photos, of course. I know you have those!

I can’t wait to see what you create. Snap a picture of your travel journals or the way you display vacation photos, then tag me on Instagram. Let the creativity flow, friends!

Wondering what to do with vacation photos and all the other stuff you collected on your trip? Here, 9 easy ideas that don't require artistic talent OR hours of free time. To & Fro Fam

32 Comments

  • My go to is normally a photo book but the smash book and shadow box sounds like so much fun!

  • Lydia says:

    This is amazing! I never really thought about a way to save all this stuff and lately I’ve been thinking about throwing it away. My kids are still young so we have so many opportunities to save more things in the future.

    • I definitely go through purge cycles, too, especially with all the accumulated stuff from having kids!! I do love to look back on travel-related papers—there’s something about them that puts me back in time on the trip.

  • Rachel says:

    I love using my planner, but I think it would make me anxious to add so many mementos to it.

  • Ann says:

    The idea of sending yourself a postcard is great. I will definitely this.

  • Raina says:

    Love this! Now is the time to organize this stuff!

  • Christa says:

    I have so many things from trips that o saved because I knew I wanted to do something with them but never knew quite what. This is perfect!

    • Honestly I’m similar Christa. I still have things saved from vacations from years ago and haven’t made them into scrapbooks or journals yet. Now’s the time!

  • Adriana says:

    Oh wow. I love these ideas!! I love scrapbooking so this would be a fun travel addition.

  • Amanda says:

    These are great ideas on how to organize vacation photos. This would be a great homeschool project as well. Thanks for sharing.

  • Nadine says:

    I really liked all of your ideas! Thank you for sharing. The travel & scrapbook were my favorites!

  • An inspirational and creative post, thank you. You have made putting something beautiful together accessible and achievable. I sometimes send myself postcards from different places and I have been going through these recently, while in lock down. It is a lovely way to remember trips we have made.

    • So glad you found the post inspiring, Carol. I love looking over old postcards, too. I keep them in clear sleeves in a binder so it’s easy to flip through them. 🙂

  • Freya says:

    I learnt a new term – “Ephemera”. What a lovely word for the waste paper that collects at the bottom of handbags. My personal favourite option is a nice clean photo book, but I also just enjoyed the term smash book (it sounds fun). You obviously enjoy scrapbooking as yours look so visually appealing, I’m not sure I’d have the skill or patience to make one look as good 🙂

    • Haha – I love the word “ephemera” too but I get kind of self-conscious using it, like I’m highfalutin! 😉 I think the main point of travel scrapbooks is that you enjoy them, not that they look picture-perfect.

  • Sarah says:

    What lovely ideas. Now I actually have time on my hand I should do this. I used to keep a travel scrapbook as a kid and loved it. Ok, if I can stay awake, I have a project for this afternoon

    • Yay!!! Our lives may look very different these days, but many of us are finding more time to do projects we never could before. Did you end up making your travel scrapbook?

  • Kathleen says:

    I love these ideas for travel journals. I’m with you and I’m not into fancy, time consuming, expensive scrapbooks. However, I take tons of photos and we travel a lot, so it’s great to have a place for them. Plus, all the papers we collect. I will have to try out one of your ideas on our next trip. Some of the books I have are just notebooks with photos on card stock and then I write a little blurb about the photo. Nothing fancy, but a good way to remember. My kids have looked through those books so many time. Great ideas here.

  • Vanessa Ball says:

    There are some fabulous ideas here on how to display your travel memories in a journal. My walls would be full if I kept all of my tickets and menus in journals. I like the idea of a book though for photo memories, would be great gifts. The only time I’ve sent myself a postcard was from Port Lockroy in Antarctica as it’s the most southern postbox in the world, it is a nice keepsake!

  • Yukti Agrawal says:

    Wow, so many creative ideas and being a creative person, I would really incorporate some of them. I do photo journalling but good to know about “Ephemera”thing. Never knew about creating a such type of fancy travel journal in which small pieces of paper and many other collectibles from our purse can be combined together. I would now surely do this Ephemera thing. Creating artistic type of travel journal is also a good idea.

    • Oh I’d love to see some of your travel journals. And one of the things I like about including ephemera is it’s a physical, tangible part of your trip. There’s something about it that makes me feel like I’m back in the destination traveling.

  • Jyoti says:

    What a wonderful set of ideas to quickly organize travel treasures!! It reminds of my days of scrapbooking when I spent tons of time and money and space putting together amazing scrapbooks. Your methods are so much more manageable and sustainable.
    I’d love to adopt some of your ideas when we can start traveling again

    • I always admired serious scrapbookers… but could never fully get into it. These ideas of making travel scrapbooks were my way of sort of doing it, I suppose! 🙂

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