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My latest Yahoo! News travel column is entitled “Why We Buy Dumb Souvenirs“, and it examines the idiosyncrasies of souvenir-hunting. “The tourist quest for souvenirs has always been somewhat skewed,” I write,
In ancient Anatolia, locals hawked supposed Trojan War relics to credulous Greek travelers, and excavations in Italy have suggested that ancient Romans had a penchant for cheap glass vials painted with pictures of contemporary tourist attractions (none of these have been proven to be snow-globes, to my knowledge, but it’s easy to draw a parallel). In medieval times, Christian pilgrims wandering the Holy Land proved to be among the most gullible relic-hunters in human history, as they carted home enough crowns of thorns, Holy Grails, and apostle-femurs to stock a macabre, New Testament-themed WalMart.
In addition to celebrating and lampooning the perennial traveler obsession with souvenirs, I also dole out a bit of advice to keep the hunt for keepsakes from interrupting the more important aspects of your journey:
1) Don’t confine the notion of what a souvenir is.
Souvenir boutiques will be found in abundance in any major tourist area, but that doesn’t mean you must confine your souvenir-hunt to specialty shops. Any token of your trip — from restaurant placemats, to pressed leaves, to local candy — can serve as a personal keepsake. If seeking gifts for loved ones at home, check department stores and supermarkets before you hit the souvenir shop — odds are you’ll find something cheaper (and just as authentic) in these types of places.2) Save souvenir shopping until the end of the journey.
Let a souvenir be a souvenir — a keepsake of experience — and don’t go off shopping for knickknacks before you’ve had some real travel adventures. Not only will this give you a social context for your destination before you start commemorating it with collectables, but it will also save you the hassle of dragging this newfound loot around with you as your journey progresses. An added bonus is that, as a shopper, you will have a better sense for the price and quality of your souvenirs once you’ve traveled and made some comparisons.3) The experience is more important than the keepsake.
In the end, shopping anywhere is still just shopping. Don’t let the hunt for souvenirs get in the way of amazing travel experiences.
Full column online here.
May 13th, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Up to about five to ten years ago, I had a shelf of trinkets from various journeys. They gathered dust etc. It was then that I resolved to “buy experiences, not things.” I still take lots of photos, but they take up little space on the computer hard drive and — they don’t require dusting.
May 18th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
When i think back on all the places I’ve been (and I’ve been to a few of them with Rolf)and all the useless crap I’ve bought, there are a few items that really stand out, and one of them is a rediculously simple bottle opener I bought from a dingy restaraunt in Burma. Basically, it’s a stick with a screw in it, but for some reason, it is one of my most prized posessions. I also love my genuine voodoo monkey skull neclace, also from burma. Actually, when i think about it, I love all my junk, and I imagine i’ll continue amassing it untill I do, much to my wife’s chagrin.