Turning your international travels into lasting memories.

No matter how many times you experience international travel, the excitement never fades. But one thing that will fade is your memory of all the exciting experiences and pleasures from your travels. Why not develop several ways to keep your "vacation of a lifetime" alive in your memory for the rest of your life? Here's how: --Keep a journal. If the idea of writing everything down bores you, keep an audio journal with an inexpensive tape recorder. But I recommend both a written and an audio journal. When you return home, transcribing your experiences into a more coherent form will help you relive the entire experience. --Take pictures. You don't have to buy expensive equipment to accomplish this (and in fact, I would urge you to economize on such equipment). Be sure to use your journal to keep track of where your pictures were taken, what the subject matters were, when and where you were there and why you found it so interesting. --Shop for bargains. Every country will offer unique (maybe even exotic) items you can buy for very reasonable prices that will become real treasures when they later sit on your mantel at home. --Compile items for a scrapbook. Keep your menus, postcards, boarding passes, rail passes, left over foreign currency, receipts, and ticket stubs to special events. You might even like to cut out pages from travel books and brochures you have picked up. When you transcribe your travel journal, type in small vignettes and anecdotes amidst these visual items of your trip to make a truly wonderful scrapbook of your journey. One thing I should point out. You may be tempted to procrastinate assembling your scrapbook or transcribing your journal. I'm not here to say don't do it, but I think you will find that once started, this will become an enormously entertaining activity. Besides, the sooner you do this, the fresher your memories will be. International travel is meant to be fun. But why let this fun recede into the dim past. If you follow these ideas, you will enjoy and "re-enjoy" your travels again and again. COPYRIGHT (c) 2005, C.H. Brown. All rights reserved.