Whilst being on my year abroad, I have tried to collect small things such as train tickets to my favourite places, attraction tickets, napkins from my favourite restaurants, and I have been taking a lot of photographs. Living in Paris I take the metro every day. I have my own personalised map on which I have circled all of my favourite restaurants, bars, cafes, parks and other things. I even colour coded it to say if these places have free wi-fi, or lunch deals (the most important things of course!). What I plan to do with all these things is make a scrap book.
For those of you that have never heard of the word “scrap book”, it’s an empty book which people tend to take away with them on their year abroad, or time on holiday, and fill it with 'scraps' of paper, tickets, maps, menus, photographs etc. It is like a memory book. It is really useful to have if you ever want to return to that place because you will always have the memories of your favourite places and why you liked them so much, all stuck into your very own scrap book!
My scrap book started in September and after 8 months is nearly full! Its dedicated to all of my time in Paris and I even colour coded some of the pages to split them into 'Favourite restaurants', 'Favourite parks' and other things, to make it easier for my future self to find things if I return to Paris (which I really hope I do!)
I would highly recommend creating a scrap book of your time whilst travelling because you’d be surprised at what things make you the happiest, and how happy you can be by just looking at an old ticket which a special date on, or a napkin from your favourite restaurant name on it. It’s the little things that can make you smile, and isn’t it nice to be able to open a book of your life and time as a traveller and just smile?
Have you ever made a scrap book?