Aaron at Vagabonding recently wrote a thoughtful post about the physical reminders of trips that travelers keep around. He concludes: “The trick to bringing your trip back home is to try to create an effective, meaningful reminder of your trip without turning it into a showy display of your own worldliness.”

A “showy display of worldliness” might be nice for a change, since many of us traveling with kids are just struggling to avoid fitting more crappy souvenirs into already crowded living rooms and bedrooms.

Although it was once the most special “treasure” he owned, our son’s red, flowered ukulele from Maui has been gathering dust on the shelf for over a year now. His stuffed dinosaur from this spring’s Disney vacation home near Animal Kingdom hasn’t been hugged in a month. When you travel a lot with kids, even one souvenir per adventure starts to add up.

Since we don’t anticipate taking fewer trips, here’s what we’ve begun to do to combat the issue and still keep alive the memories of our family trips:

• Gather our best digital photos from the entire year into one photo book. For longer trips with more photos, we make a separate book, so we can all enjoy it sooner.
• Visit a bookstore on our vacation and choose one children’s book about that area. In Phoenix, for example, we bought “The Tortoise and the Jackrabbit,” a unique version of the popular Tortoise and the Hare that describes and shows only animals found in the desert region. At the Jersey Shore, we picked up a fun, easy-to-read children’s story called “Beach Day.” When we read these books, we reminiscence about those particular trips.
• Limit souvenirs to only one—with the caveat that it has to be a really special item that we could never find in a local store at home.

What do you do when you travel a lot with children to help them remember special times and unique places without cluttering up your house?