I started preserving memories of my travels when I was a kid – taping Disney World tickets and Nantucket postcards into a traditional scrapbook, whose pages are now crumbly and yellowed. Then, in the 1990s when I vacationed a lot with my then-boyfriend, now-husband, I moved on to the Creative Memories brand of albums, where I decorated acid-free (archival-quality) pages in big books with not only my hard-copy photos, but colorful “frames,” stickers and borders. Lately, I’ve made photo-book gifts with digital images of special trips I’ve taken with extended family, and I’ve also experimented with Creative Memories’ digital software.

The bottom line: I love to scrapbook, and I wish I had more time to do it! Especially since my children love to pull out my custom-made photo albums and browse through them, exclaiming as they turn pages, “Remember the vacation when Ben got stung by a jellyfish?” and “That roller coaster went so fast!”

If you’d like to get started scrapbooking your next vacation, consider these few tips:

Remember, there’s no wrong way to scrapbook. I’ve got friends who love to “crop” their pictures with scissors and adhere them “just so” to a page in an album. Others have switched from “traditional” scrapbooking because creating photo albums online can be done anywhere you have a laptop. Similarly, if you just want to stick your photos in a book with simple hand-written captions, go for it – just use archival-quality products so that the generations after you can appreciate your hard work.

Journal as you go: So often, I’ve returned from a trip, and wished I’d remembered more details about a particular attraction. Even if you can jot down your thoughts on a scrap of paper and tuck it in your suitcase, you’ll have more information to draw from when you sit down to make a vacation scrapbook.

Let your photos do your note-taking: I take photos of every menu of every restaurant that we visit on a family trip, also to jog my memory once we’re home. When I can’t remember the name of a hiking trail we took, it’s helpful when I can go through my photos and find the trailhead sign among those I snapped. Local maps and brochures are great for fact-checking, too.

Take lots of photos: Ah, the joys of digital cameras! Snap, snap, snap away – there’s always that delete button. I advise trying to edit your photos each evening of your week-long vacation, so it’s not a totally overwhelming process when you return.

For more information about scrapbooking, I recommend you check out Creative Memories’ offerings.