Keeping a travel scrapbook can be a wonderful way to get kids excited about vacation, keep them entertained en route, and help them remember their trip once they get home. The scrapbook can be a blank sketchbook, a purchased travel scrapbook (see resources below), or just paper stapled together or placed in a 3-ring binder. Your kids can bring their scrapbooks on vacation to record events or leave them at home to fill in later. While you’re on vacation, tell kids to be on the lookout for things they could save for their scrapbook. Some possibilities include:

• Photos of the hotel, the room/bed they slept in, a special park they enjoyed, the airplane, rental car, favorite souvenirs, and anything else they can think of
• Ticket stubs, receipts, or boarding passes
• Menus from favorite restaurants, a clean napkin with a logo, the fancy toothpick that came with their sandwich
• Postcards
• Business cards from favorite gift shops or hotels
• Tourist brochures: great for cutting up and gluing into a scrapbook
• Natural items they found: flowers, neat leaves, sand from the beach
• Souvenirs: bumper stickers, souvenir pennies, decals
• Anything else that catches their fancy

If your children take their scrapbooks on vacation, they can record the day’s happenings travel-diary fashion, along with drawings of what they’ve seen. Young children may enjoy dictating their memories to you each night; their thoughts will be priceless to read as they get older. When you return home, let the kids embellish their scrapbooks with items collected from around the house or from a craft store. Check out the scrapbooking aisle of your craft store, you’ll find a large selection of themed papers and other items for your travel scrapbooks. Some things to consider:

• Hole punches: Plain and fancy, many shapes are available
• Stamps and stencils
• Glue sticks
• Scissors
• Double stick tape
• Coloring supplies: Crayons, colored pencils, markers, fancy pens
• Stickers: Look for some that remind you of your trip. Perhaps fish stickers for a trip that included snorkeling, animal stickers for a zoo trip, or seashell stickers for a beach vacation.
• Sequins, glitter, foam shapes, ribbon, or whatever else catches your fancy.

After you collect all your materials, set them out and let your kids go to work. Travel scrapbooks make wonderful keepsakes to show relatives and friends and to reminisce over in the years to come.