Too Many Pictures to Count

You've gone on your trip. You spent days, weeks sightseeing, meeting new people, enjoying the local cusine and night scene. Your camera is full almost to its limit with pictures. You've returned home to reality. Now you want to share your experience in the best way possible. But how?

Sure, you could sit everyone down on the couch, have them surround your camera, and watch the film reel of photos flow by. But how fun is that, really? And let's face it, the computer isn't much better. Why not a scrapbook?

For those who have the time to spare, creating a scrapbook can be a release, an escape to your past vacations. It can be enjoyable to spread out all your colorful pictures and place them delicately and deliberately into formations and arrangements on the page. Stamping stickers, quotes, backgrounds, and borders makes the image complete, and appealing to the eye. You can even make it more personal by adding ticket stubs, flyers, maps collected from your travels. Most scrapbooking material can be found at Target, Wal-Mart, Michaels, even a local grocery store--though the selection may be limited. A personal favorite of mine, however, is Paper Source. A store dedicated to arts and crafts. You can find everything there from decorative paper to stamps, from unique pens to stickers, from design scissors to custom embossing. But be careful. If you're anything like me you will get lost in the masses of items and end up spending your whole paycheck. It can be expensive, so choose wisely.

For people without the time or the budget to scrapbook themselves, there is an easier option. It's called MyPublisher. Most people now have digital cameras, so those pictures are inevitably going to end up on the computer. Instead of picking out pictures, putting them on a flash drive or cd, bringing them to the store and paying upwards of $0.20 a print, you can simply download MyPublisher and import all the pictures you want into the program. They have various layouts to choose from--including a travel option--and then you can format the pages with one picture or twelve pictures. It's really up to you. You can even pick the cover--linen, book jacket, leather--and the size. Once you have designed your photobook, buy it. They print, bind, and deliver your book all for a pretty decent price. I have used this service three times now, and I'm never disappointed with the results, and everyone loves the books. They go perfectly on my coffee table.

Of course, not everything has to be done on the computer. For those particularly special pictures, get them blown up, printed, and nicely framed to place around your house or apartment.

Display those vacation photos proudly!!

Worth Revisiting

Last night I was looking through old photos on my computer with my boyfriend. We were trying to pick out ones we liked to frame and hang in our study/guest room. As I scoured through the numerous files that documented my college years, a sense of nostalgia rushed over me with each memory I saw. And then we got to the pictures of all my trips, and I got this overwhelming desire to go back.

I mention in this blog all the time about how I want to see the world and venture to new places. I have a list on the side that mentions all the cities or countries that I desperately want to see. But there are plenty of places I have gone that I would consider revisiting.

With a lack of money and time, why waste it on a place you've already been?

This is an exellent question, and I'll be the first to say that I would rather vacation somewhere new. But there are certain places that just stay with a person, that have such an affect that one can't help but go back time and time again.

I have been to Italy 4 times, and if I was given the chance to revisit, I would do it in a heartbeat. Not only has Italy had such a profound impact on my life, but there is still so much of the country I have not seen. The Southern areas, particularly the Amalfi Coast, are at the top of my list. (Sicily is technically it's own country, but that is worth exploring for sure.) I have barely scratched the surface of the Eastern portion and the Umbrian region. And who wouldn't want to explore the Italian part of the Alps and snowboard in Torino? On top of there being more for me to see, there is plenty to do in Italy. I want to learn more about Italian cooking, Venetian jewelry, Roman architecture. Keeping busy in Italy would be pretty simple.

But the photos of Italy were not the only ones that made me want to go back. I was looking at the photos from my spring break trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and I could just picture myself back on that beach watching the sunset. Or the pictures of me and my mom in Hawaii riding ATV's through the old sugar cane fields, and how I would love to have that dirt on my face again. And even the depressing photos from my trip to Auschwitz, Poland, made me yearn to return to the country and see some of it's more culturally festive and active cities.

I think now I may have another list--places I would definitely want to revisit in my life:

*Italy

*Hawaii

*Mexico

*Poland

*Australia-Sydney, Melbourne, the Outback

*Greece

*Vancouver-Whistler

*Paris, France

*London

I'm sure there are others that I would go back to, but those are the top destinations.

Where would you go again?