How to document your trip

Holidays are the best way to spend time with loved ones. A space where you can truly relax and get away from the stresses of day-to-day life and enjoy the simple pleasures. The majority of people tend to go on a yearly holiday, and when you are making fantastic memories it is natural to want to savour every detail. It’s a good idea to keep a record of your trip so that when you look back you can relive the joy with your family and friends. Here are some great tips on how to document your holiday to ensure that you capture every memorable moment for when your brain is feeling a bit fuzzy, not to mention making a great present to give to family after the years have passed.

Journal/Diary

A journal or diary are probably the most common way of recording memories, events, thoughts and feelings. Of course you could write in a diary when you’re not on holiday too. However, by writing down a couple of sentences each day while you are away it will help you keep track of what happened and make it easier to figure out where certain photos or souvenirs came from. There are many tips for keeping a diary or journal, the best advice is to set alarm each day with time allocated to writing, this way you won’t miss a day by accident.

Twitter hashtag

A fairly modern idea but one that has worked well for many events, not just travelling. Although this method does rely on an internet connection, it not only tracks your travel but also lets friends and family know what you’re up to. All you have to do is think up a unique hashtag such as #SmithFamHol14 and tweet any photos, videos, links or tweets of what you’re up to. When someone searches for it later the feed will resemble something like this:

#travel was used here just as an example but you’ll have a dedicated section for any media on the hashtag and then all the tweets relating to it.

With sites such as tagboard.com that allow you to search a #hashtag and then display all of the tweets (these can include other social networks that use a hashtag or just isolate tweets) and puts them in a Pinterest format making it easy to create an overview, with a link so you can share it with friends and family, whilst allowing you to embed it on any blogs.

Online photo albums

Photo albums are a traditional way of documenting a family trip, so why not do it online? There are many services available that allow you to upload all of your holiday snaps, ranging from Flickr, Photobucket and Picsa to just name a few. It is worth shopping around to decide which suit your needs best. For instance, Flickr allows you to get rid of red eye and crop photos on the site, and you can upload them easily and add interesting effects. It also allows for easy sharing and provides licences to protect your photos through copyright. Whilst Photobucket has similar features, it also allows you to create a slideshow with your images and add music. It also has a feature that lets you build an online scrapbook, and it is free. Many of these sites also give the option of printing your book into an album, which is perfect for those family members who aren’t as tech savvy.

Scrapbook

Scrapbooks are a combination of journal and photo album, but you can also add mementos such as menus, ticket and leaflets for a more textured and detailed feel. Scrapbooking is widely popular in America, and as a result you can find a huge number of tutorials, sites and forums dedicated to it. Some people use just a basic journal to scrapbook, but they can range to extravagant and expensive books. The choice is yours.

Video

Now it’s easier than ever to create great video with technology no bigger than your hand if not smaller. In fact most technology comes with a camera and a lot of these have video capabilities. There are also many ways you can be creative with your videos, for example, Vines. These are essentially 6 second videos that you can post on twitter that loop endlessly, there are several different techniques that will allow you to put all your vines together or to take snippets and make one big vine.