10 Classic Travel Souvenirs To Collect

October 24, 2019 by Displate Artists Team in Illustration Hub


Do you daydream about your favorite travel destinations or the exotic places you’ve been to?

Do you wish you had a token to remember your vacations, trips, and experiences abroad?

Collecting the best souvenirs will keep your best travel memories alive!

To help you never forget your amazing adventures or the beautiful corners of the world you explore, discover below the list of 10 classic souvenirs that every traveler should collect!

Henry Rivers – Japan

1. Travel posters

Travel art posters that feature maps, cityscapes, or landscapes of the places you visit will be some of the most stylish souvenirs your eyes will ever see.

SpaceFrog Designs – Evening Mist
Designer Map Art – London
Michael Tompsett – Paris

Here’s what you can do with them:

Decorate the walls of your home with cool travel posters that represent the places you’ve been to.

Choose a few designs that feature your most beloved travel destinations, or start collecting travel posters for every major city you visit.

Hang them up on your wall as trophies!

Every day you look at the travel art hanging on your walls, you’ll have an awesome visual gateway to your favorite faraway places!

Sunny Night – Italy
Long Shot – Peru
Katinka Reinke – New York

Do you want a cool travel poster made of steel shipped directly to your home?

Displate has thousands of contemporary and vintage travel posters featuring 100% original designs created by independent artists from around the world!

See more travel posters you will LOVE!

2. Postcards

postcard
Long Shot – Hot air balloon

Postcards that feature scenic illustrations or photographs of the cities you travel in are classic go-to souvenirs. Any handwritten notes you include on them will surely add a lot of sentimental value, too.

Here’s what you can do with them:

Write about your daily adventures on a couple of postcards while you’re out ‘n’ about traveling the world. Then, save the postcards in your luggage, or for fun, you can mail them to yourself. 

Either way, as soon as you return home, you’ll immediately have something interesting to read about, and you can relive your trip all over again!

3. Travel Journal

travel journal
Lily Moon – The Travelling Library

A personal travel journal filled with exciting detailed accounts of all your vacations, trips, and other traveling experiences is a souvenir like no other!

Here’s what you can do with it:

Document what locations you travel to, the tourist attractions you see, the restaurants you dine in, the hotels or hostels you sleep in, your travel expenses, the people you meet, the cultural atmosphere, the weather, etc. You can also journal about the things you want to do the next time you plan to visit the same area.

Regardless of what you write in a travel journal, all of your most important travel memories will be saved, organized, and stored together in a single book that you can read anytime!

4. Clothes

louis ros – good day

Clothes like T-shirts, hoodies, and hats featuring city names or creative depictions of the places you travel — are one of the most popular souvenirs you’ll ever get.

Here’s what you can do with them:

Proudly wear your souvenir clothes while touring the places you travel, during your flights and road trips, whenever you’re back at home, or simply anytime you start to feel consumed by a bit of wanderlust!

Every single time you pull ‘em out of your closet or cabinet drawer to wear, you’ll instantly be reminded of a great time you had on a trip you took, all throughout your day!

5. Coffee beans

coffee illustration
louis ros – boom roasted

Coffee beans you get from another country (or even just from out-of-town) will introduce you to new flavors and aromas you’ve never experienced before. Coffee beans are also one of the only souvenirs you can taste and smell, making this souvenir a real treat!

Here’s what you can do with them:

Buy multiple bags of foreign coffee beans while you’re traveling so whenever you return home, you’ll have something invigorating and exotic to sip on for weeks or months on end!

Plus, whenever you open a bag of these imported coffee beans and grind them up, the scents that fill the air will whisk you away to take you back to the distant lands from where you got them in the first place! 

Delightful, right?

6. Coffee mugs

coffee mugs illustration
Elisabeth Fredriksson – Coffee Cup Collection

Coffee mugs that feature images of patriotic flags, landmark buildings, or symbols of the places you travel are an all-time favorite souvenir for every traveler to collect — mainly because just about everybody loves a steamy good cup of jo!

Here’s what you can do with them:

Every time you grab a souvenir coffee mug from your kitchen cabinet, or whenever you pick it up and bring it to your lips for another drink, every sip you take will remind you of a travel destination you treasure.

7. Drink coasters

coaster beer illustration
Victor Calahan – Mother of all beers

Drink coasters that you take from an actual restaurant, tavern, or bar where you stop in for a tasty beverage during your travels will be extremely rare souvenirs.

Here’s what you can do with them:

Put the coaster souvenirs on your kitchen or dining room table so you’ll see them every day and put them to good use during mealtimes.

Drink coasters make for wonderful home accents, too. As souvenirs, they’ll add instant character to your kitchen counters or any table in your home.

However you decide to use them, they’ll be sure to remind you of a lively atmosphere or cozy place where you enjoyed a drink from a previous journey traveled.

8. Deck of cards 

card deck illustration
Emanuela Carratoni – The Lovers

A deck of cards that feature illustrations, photographs, or symbols of the places you travel is one of the only entertaining souvenirs you can actually play with.

Here’s what you can do with them:

Bring out your souvenir travel cards anytime you want to play a card game by yourself or with the people who like to travel with you!

If you’re not a big card player, it’s still fun to flip through all of the souvenir cards and check out the cool designs that were printed onto them.

You’ll be fascinated with the artwork you see on every card and have 52 good reasons to travel again to the city where you got them!

9. Seashells

seashells vintage illustration
Fine Art – Vintage Drawing of Shells

Seashell souvenirs let you take home a part of the sandy beaches and oceans you explore during your travels. Every seashell you stumble across or dig up is going to be unique, so these souvenirs are truly one-of-a-kind.

Here’s what you can do with them:

Collect the best-looking seashells you can find. When you return home from your trip, seal them up inside of a giant picture frame that you can lean against a wall somewhere! For another idea, you can also build a seashell wind chime for your home’s front or back porch, too.

Wherever you decide to place the souvenir shells, anytime you look at them, you can daydream about all of the majestic seascapes you’ve seen, and imagine the serene sounds of a thousand rolling waves breaking as they rush ashore a lovely beach you strolled.

10. Rocks

blue rocks illustration
Moody Blues – Zen Art 2

Rock souvenirs are a fantastic way to bring home parts of the mountains, deserts, or caves you wander through when traveling the great outdoors and wilderness. 

Since the rocks you collect will come from the natural landscapes you visit, they’re the most freely available souvenirs you can find!

Here’s what you can do with them:

Collect any colorful rocks or smooth pocket-sized stones from your hiking or camping trips. When you arrive back home, simply add a layer of the souvenir rocks to the bottom of your bathroom sink.

Anytime you go to use the sink, you’ll see all of the fancy rocks you collected from the rugged terrains you traveled. It’s a great way to always keep within one arm’s reach of nature, too!

Wrap-up

No matter the destinations you visit or how often you travel, collecting these 10 souvenirs will always help you remember the amazing places in the world that you explore.

Tell Us…

Where do you like to travel?

What are some of your favorite souvenirs to collect?

Let us know in the comments below!

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