Souvenirs to collect while backpacking?
 

What are good souvenirs to collect while backpacking? I will be spending 3 months in Europe and would like to collect something--other than photos--of every place I visit. In the past, I would collect shot glasses but that is obviously impractical and would like a new tradition.

Thanks!

Obviously they have to be small and light, so refrigerator magnets? Beer coasters? Telephone numbers of attractive people you meet? The possibilities are endless, just make sure your souvenirs are not in the form of bacteria!

Key rings perhaps? You can join them altogether and attach them to the back pack if you like. Cheap and cheerful.

Actually, there is a good souvenir to collect that is both lightweight and small that is found pretty much everywhere in Europe as well as much of the rest of the world.

You know those little metal badges that can go on a hat, lapel or backpack.

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/i/141523...-1/s-l1000.jpg


They're also popular in a slightly different nail on version for putting on hiking/walking sticks.

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/UfgAAO...LAI/s-l300.jpg


My wife has a baseball hat she can't wear anymore because it is covered in them and is too heavy now. LOL. It's also prickly on the inside. She has also 2 hiking sticks covered in the other kind as well. Nearly time to buy her a new stick.

OK this is sooooo weird, I know, but I like to pick up kitchen dish towels! Easy to roll up, don't take up room and I've enjoyed remembering when and where I've picked them up. Also good gifts. Call me nuts but.....

That really depends on what you like. For example I collect bookmark of (almost) every town I've been, the artistic ones if possible; at the moment it makes for a very nice and rich collection which isn't bigger than a purse and isn't heavier than newspaper. I'm often in the process of reading 5 or 6 books at the same time (and never finish them) so those bookmarks are practical for me.

Something else not heavy or big are: beer opener, key ring (personally these 2 are not my favorite), facial towel, local spice/candy (they sell really small cute jar of all kind of foods in Europe),...

I like bookmarks, too, and often bring them home as gifts for family and friends.

I love the small coffee spoons. I also like tea towels. I have my Harrod tea towels still that are five years old and some that are twenty from Ireland. In Paris I go to E.Dehillerin. My sister inlaw was telling me how often she uses the pastry scraper I bought her from there. They have wood kitchen items with made in France written on them. I like items to have been made in the country I am visiting.

I'm a big fan of buying things that will be useful at home. For instance, take fewer clothes than you think you'll need and buy more along the way. There are some stylish and inexpensive chain stores in Europe like Monoprix in France. I also buy kitchen gadgets when I see something I don't have and that I'll use, sometimes along the way too, like a mug to make tea in my room. Every time I use any of the things I've mentioned I remember where it came from.

Disposable paper restaurant placements with their logo. Fold, light.
Can frame the best ones at home and display.

'Placemats'

Earrings or silky scarves - printed or plain? Both are very light and easy to carry. You can use these to dress up a plain outfit or easily vary your look a bit. If you're travelling for 3 months you'll no doubt get sick of your limited clothing.

I also like to buy practical things we will use at home and every time we use it, it evokes a memory. We bought two blue pottery coffee mugs painted with lemons on them years ago in Italy and every time I use the only one left, I think of Siena.

Kay

I like to collect maps. They go nicely with photos, as they depict where you've been and what you've seen. They're probably something that you use in your travels, so they have meaning in that regard. They're small, cheap (or free) and easy to pack.

If you go this route, I'd suggest getting a decently durable and nice map.

OP is a 20-something yo male. Kind of doubt he is interested in tea towels, silk scarves, or earrings unless buying for females back home!

I've collected magnets and love seeing them on my fridge at home...however now with kids they've damaged quite a few. Good reason to go back and keep getting them!

I used to collect bookmarks, but gave up a few years ago. I have a collection now and no idea what to do with them. Nobody seems to want them and I don't want to just throw them away.
I no longer collect souvenirs for myself but I do buy key rings for my grandsons. That is why I suggested key rings.

I am glad my husband brings me home tea towels and kitchen items. He went to the Coleman Mustard museum and love the big shopping bag he bought me. Heavier than normal and the tea towel I am hanging.
If it is just for him collect the different beer coasters along your stops. Some are regional. I roll up at least one menu from one of the Oktoberfest tents and frame. The designs are great on them each year. Buy a small tube at post office so they don't bend.

I too like beer coasters - from cafes -lightweight and good memories of each brew.

I once was on a bike trip where a guy collected rocks!

I have several friends who collect rocks too. But the convenient is:
- If you pass by many towns during 3 months, that can become heavy
- When you look back at the rocks, you don't see which town it's from. Or, do you? Perhaps the prettiest rock came from France? :)

I meant the inconvenience.

I've been collecting cloth shopping bags for years. I never really thought of it as collecting, because I don't seek them out when I'm travelling. However, I often see one I like and add it to my collection. Some were sold in gift shops, while others were sold in grocery shops or food markets, and have the name of the market and the city.

Bonus: You can use one of them to carry extra stuff home.

I have a number of totebags too, now that you mention it, almost all from bookshops. The best one is from Daunt Books in London and the one from San Francisco Bookshop in Paris is the one that goes back & forth to the library. The flimsiest is from Shakespeare & Co. though if I'd been willing to pay more could have had a better one. So I guess it's my fridge magnet of tote bags, useless but I like to look at it.

I think we share the same kind of hormones and memories of our youth, Dogeared! :-)

At that age I had no need for shopping bags, tea towels, or refrigerator magnets. In fact, I didn't have a refrigerator.

I'm a middle-aged woman and I have no idea what a "tea towel" even is. I think it's some kind of lightweight kitchen towel but have no idea why it is called that. I don't know what it is used for.

I like the beer coaster ideas, also. Small, lightweight and free. I don't "collect" those but have some from prior trips.

I think the frig magnets are easy, I like those and even find them useful, but can't see that for a 20 yr old male. The "Pins" is something my older sister does, I think that's an old idea, also.

Somehow I don't think of a 20 yr old male as being a collector. But I'd go with the beer coasters. Otherwise, I know this is kind of silly, but I just like buying nice postcards, they are a lot better than the photos I can take and them I may use them for bookmarks. I also always mail myself one from every major city, that's kind of fun to get--that's how I get them, I don't keep one and mail one.

Otherwise, I also "collect" little business cards from cafes and hotels where I go and they are sometimes in those racks in hotel lobbies from nearby businesses. I use those for bookmarks, also, and they remind me of my trips. Those are free and lightweight.

Kids used to collect and trade badges or pins, guess that's way out of date now. Postcards are even harder to find. My first summer in Europe I musy have mailed 30+ postcards to my parents. My mom saved them all, fun to look through them years later. I also saved ticket stubs, play bills, coasters, match books, menus, etc. and along with photographs made a scrapbook.

How about miniature items such as a tiny Eiffel Tower or London Eye? They're readily available at tourist shops and are really cheap.

Christina,

Yur education is sadly lacking. More than you need to know about tea towels. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/1...n_6135252.html

Maps. The kind with tiny pictures of buildings and monuments. The can be framed, used to cover books and albums and put under glass on table tops.

That's, "Your" education is sadly lacking, Christina, which indicates my proofreading is sadly lacking. :-(

'beer opener'
They come in cheap too ..I picked some from hotels (I swear I didn't even mean it, I've got more than enough at home)

Postcards is what I would take - old one prefereably incontrast to pictures.

I used to collect maps too when I was 20 and I'm throwing those away now when I find them.

Huh, my comment re making suggestions that would appeal to a 20s male vs. a 50's housewife was removed.

Maybe making a collage of young women's phone numbers was considered too risque?

In response to your post I mentioned hormones, Dogeared, so probably my post will be zapped as well. What a bunch of insipidly PC people that have joined the Forum! There was abslutely nothing wrong with your post. They just do not understand tongue in cheek humor. :-(

On another thread it was suggested that I not use the term 'politically correct' but instead should use the term 'respect'. As in, I should not complain that people are too obsessed with every comment having to be politically correct, I should instead respect them.

So instead of writing that people are 'insipidly PC', you should have wrote, 'What a bunch of people I respect have joined the Forum!'

See how much nicer as a person that makes you sound. LOL

"...you should have wrote..."

Another clue.

But while saying I "respect" politically correctness might be "politically correct" it is also a lie. What a conundrum!

postcards
magnets
key chains
ballpoint pens
coasters from bars
matchbooks
dish towels with maps or city names on them

Or do the shot glass idea and mail home a small box every now and then from the post office.

Are you wanting to start a collection (so all postcards, all pens) or souvenirs that will remind you of each place.

I only travel with a wheeled carryon --2 days or 2 months, doesn't matter. I look for stuff I can use on a daily basis and that always reminds me of that trip.

I have book cover and eyeglass case from Provence, a croatian key chain in leather with my initial, kitchen towel from Portugal, xmas ornaments although I try for wood or metal, most are glass. Soaps, jewelry, small Venetian mask, 3 original postcards from an artists shop in Florence that I put in one frame when I got home, 5 foot rubbing from a tomb in Westminster Abbey we call "our guy", a sari from India I use to cover and old trunk, pillow cases (w/o the insert), a wooden pepper mill from the antique market in Nice that I fill with salt ( and probably use too much during the day) and a 2'x2'metal frame from Tangiers that I inserted a small mirror in the middle square.