In an increasingly digital world, everyone has a camera. Whether it’s on the back of a phone, or tucked away in a camera bag, or mounted on your head (gopros, anyone?) when we travel especially we all have an insane amount of pictures. It’s easy for all these photos to remain forgotten in your camera roll, but having expended all that energy taking the photos, wouldn’t it be great if you took these photos and made them into something that you can cherish every day? So here are my top four ways to preserve travel memories.
1. Social Media
Now, I don’t know about you, but I take my Instagram very seriously. Perhaps too seriously. But Instagram is not just another place to dump everything you have in your camera roll. If used correctly, it can be a gorgeous, curated feed of your best and most beautiful travel memories.
Facebook photo-albums are also a great place to publish all of your photos (even the less aesthetically pleasing ones) and your captions can tell the stories that go along with them.
2. Make a photo-album!
It’s nice to have a lovely Instagram feed to scroll through when you’re feeling like reminiscing, but what if you also want something tangible to touch and flip through? Enter Chatbooks. Chatbooks makes it effortless (and when I say effortless, I mean effortless) to create your own photo album from your Instagram feed. All you need to do is:
1. Go to https://chatbooks.com
2. Click “make a book now”
3. Click “create an account now” in the pop-up
4. Create an account
5. You will be directed to http://app.chatbooks.com/books – click “+ create new book”
6. Select instagram series + “create”
7. Name your book + log in to instagram via the “login to instagram” button
8. Once pictures load, you can change the location or the caption, omit certain instagram pictures you’d perhaps not like in your album, or add new pictures in that aren’t on instagram.
9. Then all you need to do is click “+ subscribe” button, then “confirm”
What’s even better is that if you enter my code “6Y2CNTRM” you will get this first book free! (Shipping only costs a dollar) So there’s really nothing to lose here.
3. Hang your pictures up
I remember when I was young my parents would go to Costco every weekend to get our pictures printed out, because otherwise there was no way to see them. Now, photo prints are getting rarer because it’s so easy to just view your pictures on your phone/computer. After all, when prints cost money and viewing pictures on your phone is free, why bother?
Here’s where FreePrints comes in. FreePrints is an app on the iPhone that, well, gives you free prints. 1000 free 4×6 prints a year to be exact. All you have to do is pay shipping and handling fees! And what’s even better is: if you sign up with my code: cwang24 you get 5 bonus free prints!
What do you do with all these free prints? Well, here’s what I did:
You can also hang the pictures by clothespinning them to a string and stringing that across your wall, or pin them on a cork board. What I did was use poster putty to stick them directly on to the wall.
4. Start a blog!
Now hold on a moment. If you don’t already have a blog, you may be intimidated. You may be thinking “I read so many blogs and I’ve seen so many WordPress horror stories…”, “Doesn’t that cost money?”, or “That takes too much time!” But no, no, and no. It is extremely easy to start a blog, and it’s completely free! If you’re starting a blog simply to document your own travels for yourself, I suggest Blogger as the platform for you. All you need is a gmail account and stories to tell.
How about you? How do you preserve your travel memories?
