If you want to relive your travel memories long after your trips have ended, there are some creative ways to do it beyond just scrolling through your social media feeds or creating digital and paper photo albums with travel photos.
Whether it’s taking advantage of the latest technology or using some uncommon formats, you could relive your travel memories in a convenient and simple manner.
Here are five ways to display your travel photos for you and your family to enjoy.
1. Digital picture frames
Digital picture frames allow you to see photos from your social media accounts and cloud software in a very public display. You can get digital picture frames from Nixplay, Dragon Touch, Skylight, and many others, and then connect them to selected photos so they run like a slideshow presentation.
Let’s say that you just went to Berlin, Germany last fall and posted an album of your trip on Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, or Google Photos. You can now connect that album to your digital picture frame on your nightstand or in your living room. Through wifi, the pictures switch will change at a predetermined time, displaying the different photos you uploaded onto your social media account or computer. You can also create folders in Dropbox, or connect the frame to Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
2. Publish a photo book
More than a photo album, you can write an entire travel photo book that lets you showcase your photos and your creative talent as well. Write a travelogue or memoir of your experiences, tell short stories about the photos that you took, and help your reader relive your trip with you. You can create a book for a single trip, a year of travel, or even create a series for all the years you visit other cities and countries.
You can upload your book to a publisher like Amazon’s Kindle Digital Publishing or other print-on-demand services and print a few copies of your book for family and friends, or even sell it to other travelers and fans of that destination. You can publish in a variety of sizes and page numbers, from a small pocket book to a large coffee table book.
3. Print your travel photos on unusual items
You can also put your travel photos on regular household items and make them a part of your daily life functions. If you took a trip to Rome, how fun would it be to have them printed to coffee cups, fridge magnets, tea towels, water bottles, serving trays, shower curtains, and even clocks? You could redecorate an entire room to be themed after your favorite city or country, sharing small remembrances all over the room.
Companies like CafePress and Society6 feature artists who have uploaded their own work, or you can upload your own photos, and select the items you want everything printed on. You can even print to t-shirts, tank tops, and baby onesies.
4. Turn your travel photos into murals
You can actually make it feel like you’re back in your favorite travel destination by covering a wall in your living room, family room, or bedroom in a life-size photo mural. With a wall mural you can feel like you’re back on our last vacation even while you’re still at home.
Let’s say you traveled to Paris and got a nighttime picture of the Arc de Triomphe in the near distance. A full wall mural can feel like you’re standing back on that street. You can create the same atmosphere with a great photo of a waterfall, a hiking trail in the forest, a far-off mountain, or a beautiful beach at sunset.
Almost any sign printing company should be able to help you. Many sign makers have wide format, high-quality printers to print their large signs. By giving them a high-resolution version of your favorite photo, they can print it on adhesive-backed vinyl. They essentially create wallpaper of your photo and then they can even install it for you.
5. Posters are still in
When you think of posters, you may be thinking of the music and movie posters you had on your wall when you were a teenager. But they can be so much more than that.
Now you can have your photos blown up to poster sizes — 18″ x 24″ or 24″ x 36″ — often with the same sign-making companies that can print your murals. (Other traditional print may have those wide format printers as well.)
But rather than just thumbtacking your posters to the wall, treat them like fine art and frame them so they have a more artistic look.
Travel photos no longer have to be relegated to forgotten photo albums or our parents’ slide carousels. They can be a part of your everyday life, displayed in frames, or even become a part of your home’s decor.
How do you display your travel photos? Do you have a method we didn’t mention? What has been your experience with some of these formats? Tell us about it on our Facebook page, or on our Twitter stream. You can also find us on our Instagram page at @TravelproIntl.
Photo credit: One Red Shoe (Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons 3.0)