These Are the Most Genuine Travel Souvenirs to Bring Home With You

These Are the Best Travel Souvenirs to Bring Home | redleafstyle.com

Inside: Find those special travel souvenirs you’ll love forever from vacations, long trips, and weekend adventures. A month ago I was in Amsterdam. With my sister and my friend. Staring at a closed door. Locked out of our rental apartment. Not my proudest travel moment. But good things can come out of bad times. While my friend waited on a locksmith, my sister and I explored the city. We walked the cobblestone streets and analyzed each step of how we managed to lock ourselves out. How did we do that? But as we turned a corner, the happy white tents of a flea market greeted us. We found the best souvenirs of our two-week trip at that flea market. (Scroll to the end to find out what we scored!) Besides including a good story to tell people back home, those souvenirs were also the real deal. There were genuine finds that I’ll love forever. Talk about a serendipitous moment. If we hadn’t locked ourselves out, we never would have found that flea market. Why Choosing the Right Travel Souvenirs Matters The souvenirs you bring home from your travels should make you feel good. You want them to spark memories, be...

Travefy: Trip Planning Made Easy

The hardest part about getting away, whether over a long weekend or on a two-week European excursion, is making the plans. Booking hotel rooms. Planning must-see sites. Divvying up the expenses. It’s a lot to get done. Getting everything organized for a trip is where I struggle. I have a bad habit of procrastinating planning. I have this irrational fear that I’m going to pick a bad hotel or not do enough research to find good sightseeing opportunities, so I put off getting started. It also doesn’t help when I don’t have a good way of organizing. I’ve used everything from Word® documents to Excel® spreadsheets to a folder in my email to organize trips. None of which work well for this purpose. The best method I’ve ever used is this travel planning board, made from craft paper and Post-it® notes, which I hung on the wall. While fun, this method had its downsides. I couldn’t access it away from my house and it was a pain to make changes. When planning a two-week vacation to England, France and Wales in July, I found an amazingly better option. I used Travefy, a free online and mobile group planner. It...

Travel Day: Cambodia

Today I leave for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Cambodia! I’m sorry I’ve been so out of touch recently. An upcoming move (yes, I’ll be moving again this summer) and excitement over this trip has made me not in a writing/working mood. A vacation always changes that though! I hope to come back feeling refreshed and inspired. I love the feeling of the unknown before a trip (especially when traveling to a completely different country and culture). You don’t completely know what to expect and you can only imagine what you’ll see. I’m ready for an adventure! Where are you itching to travel? Tell me about it in the comments!  Keep Up With Red Leaf Style! Follow Red Leaf Style author Kirsten Hudson on Twitter @kirsten_hudson, Google+ and Pinterest....

Make a Travel Art Wall From Souvenirs

Travel art on the wall.

When most people travel, they buy one thing: souvenirs. I’ve bought plenty of keychains and magnets from those kitschy souvenir shops that seem to exist everywhere. As great as the magnet or bottle opener is, I’ve found that I want something more memorable to remind me of the places I’ve visited. Over the past few years, I’ve collected different types of artwork from the countries I’ve visited. To show them off, I put together a wall of travel art in my apartment. Displaying memorabilia collected from the different trips I’ve taken works not only as a souvenir, but also as personalized home décor. It also makes a great way to remember my travels. The great thing about creating a wall of travel art is all the possibilities! The collection can be made up of prints, photographs, postcards, one-of-a-kind paintings, fabric, scraps of paper… (you get the idea). When I travel, I try to keep the expenses low. Most of my trips to foreign countries have involved staying at hostels or budget hotels, and packing lunch from the free hostel breakfast. As such, I try not to spend too much money on souvenirs. Here are some...

Travel Planning Board

When traveling, it’s always good to have a basic plan ahead of time. Then, you can fill in the other bits with exploring and adventure! Very soon I leave for a backpacking trip through Sweden, Norway and Denmark. And, I wanted to show you the handy way my travel buddies and I planned for the trip. We taped a sheet of blank brown paper to the wall and then used post-its to mark the dates and other important info. The removable post-its were quite helpful when we had to change around the dates of the trip several times. I like the way the board looks so much, I might leave it up even after I return. How do you plan for your trips? Let me know in the comments… Keep Up With Red Leaf Style! Follow Red Leaf Style author Kirsten Hudson on Twitter @kirsten_hudson, Google+ and Pinterest....