I’m a big fan of memories. If you know me, you’ll know that I’m the sort of person who tends to dwell in the memories of the past, looking at old pictures and reading old diaries. Through the years, my way of keeping memories has evolved into writing things and posting photos in this blog. Sometimes, when I want to reminisce the old days, or simply when I have a free afternoon without nothing to do, I like to click on the archives and read my old posts. Reading those always makes me smile. Sometimes I wince, feeling the grief and heartbreak I felt, but most of the times I smile reading the old antics and little details that I’d forgotten until I read that post.

A few months ago I was sorting my photos from 2008. My disk was running out of space and I had to clear some of the folders (let me tell you, sorting 8 years worth of photos isn’t an easy job). Looking at all the photos from my travel really made my heart ache. The wanderlust had never been stronger, and these thousands of photos were telling me to plan another adventure.

But meanwhile, I was also surprised to find these old photos, unseen and forgotten. I guess they hadn’t made the cut for my editing, and were just left there, which is such a shame. Many of these photos were captured, copied to the laptop, and that was it. I never really bothered to print any of those. The digital era has lulled me into thinking that storing them in my drive was enough.

The memories of my travel have always been among the few that I cherish the most. While the photos were there (albeit unseen), unfortunately, I was also disorganized. All the tickets, receipts, and other keepsakes from my travel were left scattered, and eventually lost. Over time, I’m losing the memories of little things I experienced in my previous trips. Fleeting moments were quickly forgotten, as days blurred into one another and memories of details faded over time. This blog has helped a lot in preserving those memories. When I was in Southampton I realized this, and promised myself that I would religiously write on this blog (glad that I’ve been keeping that promise). But now, I want something more personal, something I could flick through and read to remind me of the little details in every adventure.

Starting from the last vacation, I made an extra effort to do better in keeping the memories, in the form of… a scrapbook. Such an old school thing, but I love it. I’d bought a scrapbook just for this trip, and each day I took photos with my polaroid cameras, to be pasted onto the pages. Yes, polaroid films are expensive, and I’m too much of a paranoid to let other people take the photos (nothing bums me more than a failed photo), but I decided to go against the grain and just… let go. It was the best decision ever, even with a few failed photos. I loved that I could see the result immediately and hold it, and stick it to the scrapbook page. I’d write the things we did that day, and put on receipts or anything that could remind us of the day. I had a great time doing this, and it’s so nice to have something tangible that keeps all my vacation memories.

A scrapbook, from now on, will be one of my travel essentials.