Now that we’ve all had a good …seven months… to organize them,1 let’s figure out what to do with them, shall we?
There has been a lot of time to ponder, reset, and indulge in hobbies that aren't, well, traveling. On the bright side, those travel photos of trips past in itself are an an actual treasure trove undiscovered.
How many of us actually have our travel photos organized? How many of us sorted them out, edited them, and displayed them proudly on our walls? (Everyone's done the Instagram thing.)
How this: How desperate are you to fill up the time?
For extra quarantine time, consider doing all of these.
Better yet, they may unintentionally spark joy into the future, short of planning a trip.
Actually organize those photos
Let's be real.
TIME: LIMITLESS
COST:: $0
Start an Instagram (but not just any...)
Everyone already has one, though how about starting one to exclusively to celebrate travel?
Not that we’re not spending inordinate amounts of time in front of our screen already, but it’s a fun challenge to push creativity to its limits.
Map Happy writer Laura Kiniry started to post a trip for every single day of the lockdown at the start of this year—even if it’s been balanced by the ability to explore new environments in a less accessible world—going a multitude of years back, and she’s still going strong!
Instagram has always been great for flaunting trips, so now it’s time to do it unabashedly in style.
Consider spreading it out by posting individual photos versus trips. Challenge yourself and create a calendar featuring a different destination, country, or place every day.
Dial up it up by thinking about colors and visualizing that grid (oh, we know all about the grids).
Trust us on this one, this one is sure to occupy a lot of time 😉
It’s a great reason to revisit photos you may not have necessarily looked at for years and perhaps, to dial it up for another project listed on this list.
Most of all, revel in those smiles, of another time. Time traveling still counts as traveling, right?
TIME: THE FULL DURATION OF QUARANTINE
COST:: $0
Turn those walls into an Instagram grid
Do you remember the outside world? If not, maybe it’s time to post photos of the outside world so that we can all remember what it’s like!
(The next step is to cultivate a full herb garden.)
Mixtiles simplifies the process by turning those photos on the phone into quick, easy stickable tiles through their app.
Now that you're trying your hand at Instagram influencing, it's time to up the ante and physically recreate this on the walls at home.
(For full accuracy, purchase nine tiles for those walls, though buying the full set of 10 tiles is cheaper.)
TIME: ONE WEEKEND
COST:: $11 per tile, or $85 for 10 times ($8.50 per piece)
Revel in making a cliché scrapbook
Move on over, Shutterfly. There's a new gig of Moms in town!
Seriously, though, Chatbooks is built for the digital age, and there's a wide of offerings to suit every budget. Photos come straight from the phone's camera roll and everything is done through an Android or iOS app.
Perhaps our favorite product offering of theirs is a Monthly Mini subscription (30 pages per book, for 12 months). It's designed for toddlers, though its also a great segue into a mini project, and one we could reasonably tackle with aplomb. How about a mini for every country visited?
Because we all miss photos like these. (naim fadil / Flickr)
It also means a fun new project for every month (that this lasts?) at a very minimal cost [we're almost not sure how this covers shipping!].
Surely, it's not too hard to find 12 places to celebrate.
We do have an annual subscription for a total of $50. Or you have the option to do monthly for $5.00 each month and you can cancel that at any time.
TIME: ONE AFTERNOON, ONCE A MONTH, 12 times a yaer
COST:: $5 per month ($60 annual, because the first one is free, includes shipping)
Eat feelings of wanderlust
It’s okay to eat those feelings away (I do it all the time).
Customize these Boomf marshmellows for a fun and friendly gift, though most likely, justify it to yourself that you can't access your friend's camera roll, so really just order these for yourself.
TIME: ONE HOUR
COST:: $21.50 (+$3.99 for U.S. shipping), so $25.49 total
Create a daily calendar
This matte calendar stand is sure to win home decor points all around with its clean, block lettering and sans serif design.
The Social Print Daily Calendar lets people deck each day with their personal memories. The biggest challenge here is finding 365 of them to fill up every single day of the year, though we don't think that will actually be that hard.
Of course, the bright side is that not every single photo has to be a travel photo, and there’s plenty of room for anniversaries and birthdays.
(Quick idea: If you’re having trouble finding a photo, look in the archive for a picture that was taken on the day of years past. Technology has made this easier than ever before!)
These daily calendars do not seem to indicate what day of the week it is, though that does make it somewhat great for reusing each year if you feel like saving the cards
Since the system lets users upload 50 photos at a time, expect to do this process about seven or eight times. This project might take up to a month, placing us well at the end of the year, right before the new year, and hopefully in time for a fresh start.
TIME: MAYBE A MONTH
COST:: $50
Create a wall mural
There’s hanging another picture on the wall, and there’s making it into a mural.
MuralsYourWay transforms an entire wall into a photo of your choice.
Most fairly obsessed travelers have visual momentos of past trips hanging around their home, and I’ve always personally enjoyed waking up to a treasured memory of a place (in particular, the wall opposite the headboard has always been a nice space).
Instead of tiling it up, consider one photo to make up for all of it. Do you know the photo that you’d pick to sum up all those trips?
There’s a photo we took hiking over a decade ago of the sun setting over the mountains of Hong Kong that's a clear winner for us.
It was the first time and place where travel really impressed itself upon us, and reflected the true delight of travel: an oasis devoid of people, contrary to expectations, with the gift of spontaneity coalescing into a moment of serendipity and serenity.
TIME: ONE SUNDAY
COST:: $134
