You do a lot when you travel, and those things often leave a piece of paper or other reminder in your pocket. Free maps and guides, museum tickets, shop receipts — what looks like trash is actually a record of your day. When you put it all together in this hanging travel journal it makes a great souvenir!
Before you go, you’ll make a simple kit with tape and string. During your trip you’ll make one page of your journal each day out of the bits and pieces from the day’s activities. When you get home you’ll have a unique and wonderful reminder of everything you did to hang on your wall.
Make and keep memories of your trip
There’s room to do this craft in even the smallest hotel room
Helps travelers of all ages wind down from a busy day
The best souvenir ever, made by you!
Steps At a Glance:
Ready? Here’s how:
1
You’ll need:
String
Tape
Glue stick
Mini stapler and extra staples
Scissors
A sandwich bag or other container
2
Make your kit:
Cut a length of string — say about 6’ of string for a weeklong trip. It’s better to have extra than to run out.
Tie a loop at each end. Bundle up the string and put it in the sandwich bag with the tape, stapler, extra staples, glue stick, and scissors.
Tip: Either pack this kit in checked luggage or leave the scissors out and buy an inexpensive pair when you get to your destination.
3
Collect your stuff
During your trip, hang on to things you find throughout your day. Paper bags, maps, tickets, bottle caps, small seashells, wrappers. Big or small, you can use it.
Try to save one bigger piece of paper during the day, like a bag, newspaper, takeout menu, or map.
In the photo is stuff I collected on a trip to Japan: a convenience store receipt, a menu, a free map, some paper bags from small purchases, business cards from cafes and hotels, a tiny pinecone, and a paper crane. I even saved a paper tab from a teabag because I liked the printing.
4
Build your Day
At the end of the day pull out all the things you saved.
Start by making the page you’ll attach the day’s items to. It can be a square, a rectangle, a triangle or any shape you want.
Fold over the top edge, hang it over your string, and staple the paper with the string inside the fold.
Lay out your stuff and see how you want to arrange it on the page. Paper items can be glue-sticked or stapled on. Use tape to attach hard or bulky items (like the pinecone). It’s OK if you only have one or two items for the day. They’ll still look great. You can also write or draw something you did that day on a piece of paper and include that on your page. If you have a lot of things you can make two pages.
Play around with the arrangement and remember that you can —
cut things smaller or into a different shape
cut out just your favorite parts
layer things over each other
extend them over the edge of the page
You can even decide not to put anything else on the page, and just use it blank if you like how it looks!
This page started with the map, then I added the pink bag with the face on it, the paper crane, and some business cards.
I cut one of the cards with scissors to make it fit and look more interesting.
5
Take it Home
Fold up your travel journal accordion-style for the trip home. Then hang it up from pushpins and enjoy looking at all the things from your trip.
You can add an extra page with the dates of your trip and a title written on it.
Where to find stuff
Once you start lookingt for things to use in your journal, you’ll find them everywhere!
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Business cards from places you visit
Takeout menus
Brochures and maps from museums (and that pin they give you to wear)
The wrapper from the little soap in your hotel
Hotel note paper
Store receipts
Snack wrappers (remember you can cut them smaller)
Paper bags
Newspapers and magazines
Paper napkins, especially ones with printing on them
Empty sugar packets
Seashells, bottle caps, dry leaves, acorns, and other hard things you may find
Tickets from rides, buses, or trains
Thank you for reading! If you have questions, please drop me a line.