WRITING PROMPT RESPONSE
Memories Are the Best Souvenirs
When you’re a collector by heart but have limited space
Looking at the history of hunter-gatherers, I’m definitely the gatherer and my husband is the hunter. There’s no doubt about that. He’ll hunt in real life. He can shoot an antelope and prepare it for dinner.
While me, well.
I’ll go pick flowers.
That’s not true. I’ve learned better than that thanks to my parents.
I can run a vegetable garden, pick blossoms in the mountains to make tea in the wilderness and even know a handful of wildflowers that could be useful for eating or medicine.
“Keep some souvenirs of your past, or how will you ever prove it wasn’t all a dream?” — Ashleigh Brilliant
But this article is about a different kind of gathering. The kind of gathering we do while we travel around the world hopping from one souvenir shop to the other.
It’s more a collecting of items than a gathering of edible foods.
However, I’ve done my fair share of collecting things while traveling. I’ve dropped some while others are still going strong.
As gatherers by nature, it is difficult not to collect piles of things when visiting new and exciting places.
Sand
Yes, I have a collection of sand from around the world. It’s mainly from beaches. And one desert. But I have collected white, brown, red, and black sand. Fine and coarse.
I started collecting sand sometime during my teenage years. I was obsessed with beaches and wouldn’t do more than tan myself for hours in the Mediterranean sun or play a game of beach volleyball.
I never had a problem with sand and didn’t mind having sand stuck to my body. Therefore it wasn’t surprising I decided to take sand home.
Sand as my souvenir.
My own territory wasn’t bigger than my teenage room but it was enough for me to create my own beach paradise right there. Including palm trees and real sand.
I bought small glass jars from Ikea and labeled each of them with the location and year of where I had collected the sand.
Once I left Europe I stopped this collection. I had no space for kilograms of sand while backpacking through Africa. It would have weighed me down in many ways.
Postcards
I've always loved sending and of course, receiving postcards. But what I also did was always buy one postcard for me and my paradise-like teenage room to cover those boring and definitely uncool wooden walls.
I decorated my room with postcards of countries and cities I had visited.
I stopped this collecting hobby when all the wooden doors and frames were covered. I had literally no more space for more postcards.
Shot glasses
Well, I do drink alcohol. I love a cold beer after work and surely won’t say no to a glass of my dad’s best red wine. And I also like to have a shot glass of some good schnapps from time to time.
I might or must have been drinking more in my teenage years because I was definitely obsessed with shot glasses. I bought a shot glass from every city I went to and even from a country where I saw nothing else of the city than the airport building itself.
Those shot glasses weren’t just for decoration of my room. I used them. I drank out of them from time to time and when friends came over I’d bring them out for everyone to have a different glass.
I think I would estimate my collection on 30 to 40 shot glasses now.
Yes, I have stopped this one too. I don’t have 40 friends to share a good liqueur with. And I still don’t have my own space. These glasses are still standing at my parents' place in my old teenage room.
Except for five of them. 5 beautiful shot glasses traveled with me to northern Germany where we currently live.
Yes, I can have 4 friends over to have a drink with me and talk about the places I’ve been to.
And no, this collection is also stagnating. No more shot glasses to be added to this collection of mine.
Badges
No, I’m not collecting any badges. No fancy badges. No specific badges. Just a flag from every country I’ve been to. Those badges get hand sown onto my hiking backpack.
A memory for me and those who follow me. It’s somehow a collection of numbers.
However. I like the idea of decorating my good hiking/backpacking backpack. It’s been my home for so many months and I’ve lived out of it for an incredibly long time.
Photographs
It was at my husband’s cousin’s wedding when I first saw the modernized mini version of an old Polaroid camera. And immediately I fell in love with the idea of getting photographs printed on the spot.
It didn’t take long and I was the proud owner of a Polaroid camera. It isn’t my camera for everyday picture taking. I only use it on special occasions and will only take one or maybe two pictures at once.
It’s a capture of the moment, not a challenge of getting the best shot like what we do with all of our digital cameras. We keep on clicking until we have the perfect shot.
With my Polaroid camera, I almost only take pictures of people when I meet up with friends or family. And those tiny photographs travel with me around the world.
Those memories captured in a once-off photograph are part of my most valuable things.
Photo books
This isn’t something I just collect but create. Taking up the documenting my mom had done since the day I was born, I am making photo books from every country we move to and every place we visit.
The photographs we take with our phones and digital cameras would just disappear in the depths of some hard drive. This is why I create paper versions of our memories.
The photo books can’t travel with us but we have split our collection of books between Germany and Namibia. Half of them are at my parents’ place, the other half at my in-laws' house.
One day, maybe we will settle down, and then I’ll be able to fill one shelf with all of our memories. In form of photo books.
Bracelets
This one is a passionate one. I started it when I first placed a foot on the African continent and fell in love with the colorful Ghanaian fashion and never stopped it.
Once I buy a bracelet I don’t take it off anymore. The only way I separate myself from any bracelet I’ve ever bought is when they break.
Yes, I wear those bracelets day and night.
And yes, I have a massive tan line from in but I don’t care. You can’t see it. The bracelets are always covering it.
This is pretty much the only jewelry I wear and the one that always beeps when going through the security scan at the airport. All those bracelets together cost less than any of your jewelry most probably but this one isn’t for money.
It's about the style. The tradition. And the local markets I buy them from.
I wear these souvenirs. I don’t ever need to pack them, find them, or think about how to transport them. They go hiking with me, swim in the ocean, and even go skydive with me.
These bracelets are somehow a way of me showing the world there’s a part of Africa in my heart. Even though I wasn't born there.
My current state of bracelets has a bracelet from Namibia, South Africa, Germany, Portugal, and a few from Thailand as well.
Sarong
One of the most useful and multi-functional items I do own is a sarong. It started out with a lightweight towel from Italy, then I bought one somewhere in Africa years ago but might have left it the last time in Namibia at my in-laws' house. I do have now a new one bought in Thailand.
And a sarong is more than just a scarf.
A sarong is a
- scarf
- blanket
- towel
- dress
- table cloth
- picnic blanket
all in one.
I’ve used my sarong on so many trips and never, not once carried it with me without using it at all. It's just such a lightweight and handy item to have with you.
My sarong is always in my hand luggage to have it on me when traveling through over-airconditioned airports in the world and to stay warm in cold planes.
I often use it as a beach towel or wrap myself in it after getting out of the water. When I do travel back home or to other colder climates, I do use it as a scarf as well. But it’s probably the least used function of it.
Clothes and other useful items
Souvenirs can be more than just a sculpture standing in the corner. I have shoes, pants, dresses, earrings and even a blanket I have collected from my travels around the world.
I don’t go shopping as normal girls do. I actually dislike shopping. I go buy clothes when mine are stretched out and broken beyond fixable (yes, I do fix my clothes with a needle and a thread).
Over the years I have developed a clothing style that is quite unique. It’s a mixture of Italian summer vibes and African colorful patterns. There are some Thai features in between and of course, the dominant color is yellow.
In summer (or those warm destinations) I preferably walk barefoot but if I need to wear shoes it’s a pair of thongs made of straw. I used to buy them in Italy in my teenage years and would get 2 or 3 pairs every year I’d visit.
Later I found the same or similar ones in numerous countries in Africa and Thailand as well. Those shoes are surely souvenirs from traveling and are being used until fallen apart.
I do own more pants, dresses, and shirts from abroad than bought in my home country of Germany. I do not have a huge wardrobe and wear the clothes I own on a regular basis.
My daily look is a mixture of souvenirs from around the world.
Well, and then there is this blanket. Even though we have limited space when moving from one country to another across the continents, there are certain items that always make the bag.
It used to be a thin fabric hanging on a street stall in Ghana. When I lived in Ghana for a few months I had gotten myself a few dresses made by a seamstress just around the corner. Selecting first the fabric and then the cut, I loved the outcome.
But when I saw this fabric I had something different in mind.
I wanted a blanket.
I had a thin but fluffy, warm yellow blanket at home and asked my grandma, who was a seamstress if she would help me sew that fabric on top of the blanket.
She did.
And you won’t believe how much I’ve used this blanket. How many nights I’ve slept under the African stars protected by nothing else but this one blanket. Lying on a mattress in the wilderness, this blanket was my only safety.
It’s probably one of the souvenirs I’ve gathered over the years I definitely use the most. In the list right behind the sarong.
Final words
Yes, if you’re on the constant move traveling around the world it is difficult to collect normal souvenirs on a large scale. But souvenirs are more than just dust-collecting statues on the shelves.
Souvenirs can be your outfit, the food you eat, and the pictures you’ve taken. I do carry a lot of souvenirs with me even though they don’t weigh as much as Jillian‘s stone collection. But even those souvenirs make it around the world.
If there’s a will, there’s a way.
I love selecting souvenirs that somehow come in handy for me. Either because I can wear them, they make me or my backpack look prettier, or because they are simply memories of a great time.
“Of all the priceless objects left behind, this is what we rescue. These artifacts. Memory cues. Useless souvenirs. Nothing you could auction. The scars left from happiness.” — Chuck Palahniuk
What about you? What souvenirs do you bring back from your travels? Do you have a collection you can show us? I’d love to hear about it.
This is a response to the writing prompt started by Linda Ng with her post on presenting “Here Are 5 Of My Favourite Souvenirs”.
Many have taken part in the challenge and presented their souvenirs:
Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages with “Full-Time Travelers Collect Souvenirs As Well”
Belcairn with “The Most Special Souvenir Ever Cost Hundreds Of Thousands!”
Nishan Fuard with “Memories are Made of THIS?!”
Osan Fernando with “My 5 Favorite Souvenirs”
JoAnn Ryan with “Can a Keepsake Tell a Thousand Stories?”
Adrienne Beaumont 🇦🇺 with “My Five Favourite Souvenirs”
And this is another article of mine where I’ve spoken about passion and all kinds of things I have collected over the years:
Join my email list here if you would like to read more travel essays or sign up for the Medium membership to receive unlimited access to my and other writer’s stories out here (I will receive a commission fee in return).