Written by Christi Sparrow
How many photos are sitting on your mobile device, cloud storage, or hard drive at this very moment? Thousands? Tens of thousands? While capturing moments in photos and videos has certainly become infinitely easier in recent years, it’s also become easier to leave our growing collections of digital files stored on a cloud, out of sight and unorganized. So what are some easy ways to document your travels so you and your family can enjoy reliving your memories?
Before we left our home in September 2019 to travel for an extended period of time, we made a conscious effort to plan and decide on some easy ways to document our travels. Our plans were by no means perfect, but our intentions were clear. We wanted to record and document enough so that we can relive the memories together in the future. But not so much that it interferes with living in the moment! It’s a tall order, for sure.
But with a little planning before you leave home, you can be prepared to capture amazing memories from your travels. Here are some easy ways to document travels that have worked for us.
Designed for Travel: Journi Photo Books
If photo albums were a love language, than they would be mine. I love taking photos, studying images, reminiscing over shared memories, and inheriting and creating keepsakes to be enjoyed for decades. So naturally, I spent time researching easy ways to document our travels in photos.
I had been creating family photo books using Snapfish for years, and I really like their platform. It’s easy to customize each page of your book, adding backgrounds, text, embellishments, and more. But I wanted to find a photo book service that was even easier to use and preferably designed to document travel specifically. I wanted a high-quality, beautiful photo book that was efficient and simple to create. After some research I found Journi Books.
The Journi app links to your phone’s camera roll for easy importing. You select and import photos in groups which are called “memories”. The app pulls date, time, and location data from your photos, if available. You can also add or change this information for each memory directly in the app. This data is important because your Journi photo book will automatically include dates for each memory and beautiful maps with colorful pins in all the places your “memories” occurred.
It’s easy to add captions and see your “memories” come to life in a beautiful sequence. A series of memories comprise a “Journi”. You could create a Journi for each trip or destination. For example, I create a “Journi” (or two!) for each country that we visit.
To get money off your first Journi Book order, download the app and enter code HI10FRIEND at checkout. 🙂
Photos of Journi books courtesy of Kyle Fredrikson.
Once your Journis are created, you can choose to print photo books in four different sizes, softcover or hardcover. The app also has a sharing function so you can share your photos and captions with their online community and invite family and friend to join.
The Journi app makes organizing, captioning, and printing your photos super simple from the palm of your hand. The photo books are gorgeous and will be treasured family keepsakes for the rest of my life and (hopefully) beyond!
Sponsored
$200 Uber Eats Credit, Airport Lounges, Bonus 60k points and more!
Tried and True: Photo Albums
Another easy way to document your travels is by simply printing hard copies of your photos and slipping them into beautiful photo albums. It’s a relatively easy task, and it’s fun to involve the kids and relive your adventures after you return home.
Snapfish offers 100 free 4” x 6” prints each month for one year when you download and order through their app. Shutterfly offers unlimited free 4” x 6” and 4” x 4” prints when you use their app. Shipping fees for both services may apply.
The best part about creating any sort of photo book or album is that your family can easily enjoy your travel memories simply by pulling your creation off the shelf.
For the Video Lover: YouTube
If you love taking video clips and want to build a library of movies that feature your travels, why not start a YouTube channel? It’s quick and free, and you can decide whether your videos are private or public. Posting videos as private means you must invite users to view what you publish. Posting videos as public means anyone can search for and view your content.
We started creating videos using Quik, a video editing software by GoPro that’s easy to use from your smartphone. We have since graduated to using iMovie, the video editing software by Apple.
Our kids love watching the videos of our family travels! It helps to solidify memories in their little brains. It’s also a fun way to share travel experiences with friends and family. And who knows, your videos could go viral!
For the Writer: Start a Blog
Writing about our travels is a passion of mine. So before we left home, Jay created a blog site for me to post articles. While it may be time consuming to create your blog site in the beginning, a blog is beautiful way to document writing pieces, display photos, and share it all with family and friends.
There are countless sources of information and instruction on how to create a blog and improve your writing skills. You can take a blogging course, leverage skills of a freelance web developer through websites like Fiverr, or watch YouTube tutorials!
For the Journaler: Digital Journal
A couple of years ago I started a simple word processing document which I store on the cloud in which I write journal letters to our kids. It’s my alternative to a physical journal which would add weight to our luggage and has the potential to get lost or misplaced.
I write to our kids in these journals about weekly, and I include details about our excursions, their milestones and development, or simply something funny or sweet they said that day.
Another way to keep an electronic journal of sorts is to create an email account for your child and send them emails throughout your travels, (and at home!). Then when they are older you can give them the password so they can access all of your thoughtful messages to them.
For the Social Butterfly: Social Media
Social media has given us an easy, practically reflexive way to document and share our travel adventures. For most of us, logging on to our social media accounts is a habit that’s already programmed into our day!
Since we tend to post our favorite photos online, go ahead and tag those photos as “favorites” in your camera roll. That will make it easy when it comes time to print your photos or create a photo book for your bookshelf at home! You might even decide to print your photos directly from Instagram or Facebook.
For some inspiration, check out these travel families on Instagram: Tribe Gone Traveling, Puddles and Passports (that’s us!), and The Roman Popes.
Enjoy the Process!
I’ve been in love with taking and printing photos since I was a child using film. I remember the anticipation of picking up my pack of prints and first laying eyes on my photos. With only 24 frames on each roll of film, each print was like a special souvenir. But I digress.
Now there are so many easy ways to document and cherish your travel memories. Remember to have fun with the process, and choose a method that you enjoy. Your future self will thank you.
One of my daydreams is that when our kids are grown, they will dust off the photo books and journals and videos that we are creating for them, and they will retrace our steps around the globe on their own terms and led by their own curiosity and confidence. One new and exciting adventure at a time.
Share This Post
6 thoughts on “6 Easy Ways to Document Your Family’s Travels”
All good ideas. I also recommend Day One if you are a Mac / iPhone / iPad user. Not only is it great for documenting travel because you can set up separate ‘journals’ for specific trips, but it’s my goto every day journal as well.
I did have a problem with Journi. While it performed reasonably well during a two-week trip through Europe, I was less than impressed with the output. You are restricted to their format, which I didn’t like very much. But because of the proprietary nature of the platform, it took me many many hours to cut and paste descriptions from individual Journi entries into a format that I could share with people who didn’t have Journi.
For my next long trip – hopefully soon if we get this pandemic beaten – I will also blog about the trip. I haven’t tried that before but I really like the concept.
Hi Mike, thanks for your comment! Yes, Journi’s format is somewhat set, but I find that it helps me complete photo books efficiently, or else I’d constantly be designing and rearranging! Haha. Blogging is fun, and it’s a great outlet. Good luck, and I look forward to reading your first post! And I will check out Day One– thanks for the tip! 🙂
Love this! We have a camping journal that stays in our RV. We like to add stickers and other small items from our travels!
Hi Katie! A camping journal sounds so fun; sounds like scrapbooking! I bet the kids love adding to it.
We need to be better about documenting. We always create a photo album the day we return from a trip, but that is usually its extent. I love the idea of a YouTube video. We did one for our “best vacation ever,” and I go back and watch it often. Thanks for the tips.
Thanks for your comment, Carrie! Photo albums are terrific. Happy holidays!