You can collect a paper or card memento of every stop on your trip for a scrapbook or to illustrate a diary.
If you buy souvenirs, or collect a type of item from every city or country, you can buy display cases.
Postage Stamps
When I was a child I collected postage stamps. I bought stamp albums.
Postcards
As a teenager I collected postcards. I bought albums for postcards.
Coins
I saved coins from trips. I bought an album for my coins.
Wartime Memories
In WW2 medals were given for participating in certain battles. Years later, it became possible to make a 33d frame of medals for one's own satisfaction, or for descendants to create as a memorial to their ancestors.
Scrapbooks & Diaries
You can buy travel diaries and scrapbooks . Paste in tickets, postcards, and other reminders of places you visited.
I am a collector, a hoarder, and keep shoe boxes and box files for each country. You can also cover a notebook or shoebox or magazine box or old suitcase with brochures showing the country names and landmarks of places described in your diaries.
Thimbles
I used to collect thimbles.Many places sell thimbles decorated with local landmarks. Thimbles were small enough to go in my handbag, and did not take up lots of room in a suitcase.
You can buy display cases for thimbles.
Spoons
Some people collect decorative spoons. You can buy wooden display cases for spoons to hang on the wall.
Rugs
I met a pilot's wife who bought rugs and small carpets from every oriental country she visited. She had piles of them under beds in the spare room. The thin and elborate silk ones were hung on the wall. Others were scattered on the corridors and room floors throughout her apartment.
After you have collected a few you may wish to put them in order. Display them.
Pens
A friend in Singapore collects pens. He visits a pen shop at every destination.
Books & DIcitonaries
When I went to countries in Europe I bought a dictionary and a phrasebook in each country. When I wnt to live in the USA, I bought a dictionary, which was an American Webster's dictionary.
Maps
We bought maps for driving holidays. Eventually we had a collection of maps.
Wine Bottles & Labels
My husband is now a wine educator and wine writer and he visits vineyards and cellar doors. He buys wines from the regions which he visits, on a theme.
Some kitchens have a horizontal wine rack, which stops corks drying out. Some bridges have bottle racks or sections. When you have a large number of bottles. and keep them from year to year, or save them for anniversaries, you might want to invest in a wine fridge which keeps wines at a low temperature. If you are in the tropics as an expat, you might need a wie friedge to keep wines out of the heat.
I visited a relative who kept empty wine bottles on top of her kitchen and living room cabinets. I thought that was a good idea and started to do the same.
Your policy could be to allocate some of your holiday spending money to collecting certain products on a theme, rather than bying souvenirs at random.
Postcards
Or you might decide to collect free or inexpensive items, such as free advertising postcards.
Playing Cards
I used to collect playing cards from every destination.
Puppets
Supermarkets had the cheapest puppets. I bought bathtime gloves which have finger puppet ends to the fingers. The styles change every season, so in the course of two years I had three or four different hand gloves.
They are light to carry, for entertaining children at restaurants, and on long journeys on transport.
I later found pupets at museums, often only one puppet of a local character. Puppets tend to appear at Christmas, on racks near the cashier counters.
Useful Websites
I also bought puppets online. And from toy shops. And from motorway stops. They take up a lot of space. And from puppet museums.
Acrylic display cases in all shapes and sizes, inexpensive from Temu.com.
Useful Websites
Wooden
