The Best Travel Souvenirs Are My Memories
There are certain things in life that we just can’t let go of. Despite downsizing and getting rid of all of my personal possessions in 2017, except two small totes which are stored at my parents, there is no way that I could ever part with my travel journals.
Thankfully, as a young woman, I documented my travels. I suppose I still do, but the stories come in this form, on Medium, not the hand-written way.
Somehow the hand-written way is much cooler.
Actually, I’m not sure if it is because it is hand-written, or if it is the insight into my young traveling brain that makes these journals so cool. Reading the thoughts that I had about the world helps me to remember how alive with curiosity I have always been. But, as a young woman, everything was new, and the world was a much simpler place — I wasn’t jaded by the challenges of life just yet.
I grabbed these journals from one of my totes on my last visit to my hometown earlier this year. Since then, I have been carting them around with us as we visit family and friends in Western Canada.
Reading these journals brings back memories that have long since passed. Like the time I played hacky sack high up in the Himalayas with the Sherpas who assisted us on our Everest Base Camp trek. Or remembering I turned 16 on that trek and that our cook made me a Nepali birthday cake.Reading through these is like a journey through time. I am transported to a time and place that I may not remember immediately, but in reading these pages it is all brought back. Suddenly I can see the sights in my mind, I can hear the hustle and bustle around me, and I can taste the excitement of something different.
My ex-husband and I drove to Mexico in the year 2000. I documented all of it including when we painted our van smurf blue before leaving Canada. Plus, let’s not forget the time that we “lost the war with the…
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