Let's face it, a large family is expensive. Because I travel with anywhere from 6 to 10 people often, I have to be creative regarding entertainment. Although I invest in one or two paid, planned, crowd-pleasing activities on every trip, I know that the bulk of my time will be spent ensuring each individual gets something out of it. Lucky for me, there are several in my family who like to do creative things! Making memories with creative projects can be an excellent way to immerse yourself in local culture, make a meaningful DIY souvenir, or enjoy some creative time together.
In this post, I will share some of my favorite (with links and purchase recs) ways to appreciate travel destinations, from arts and crafts to food. Getting your hands into the equation and making something can be inexpensive or even free.
Press local flowers into a book – pick the roadside wildflowers and press them into your journal or even a magazine or tourist flyer from a kiosk. Anything will do. Keep it flattened in your bag and held together with rubber bands or binder clips. Then, when you get home, arrange them in a frame to remember your trip. I love how my artist friend Amanda McCauley takes this idea to the next level:
Start a photo series of favorite scenes. It's fun to pick a theme or challenge and follow it throughout your trip. I am struck by verdant scenes in the Pacific Northwest, so green it's hard to believe. The photo challenge when I am there is to find those still beautiful scenes in black and white. In Sedona, I was on a mission to further that thought and find scenes so lovely in Black and white that I would frame them. Every time I pass those pics, I can remember that beautiful week my husband and I spent at the Enchantment Resort. I can think of what it was of it was like to be just the two of us, in love with time on our hands. Long walks in the Sonoran Desert, massages, a fireplace, some vintages from the cellar that my hubby had been saving...when I see these pics in passing, I swoon just a little.
Art and love pair well.
I took a leather bag-making class on a rainy day in Lyon, France. The teacher was very gracious and spoke perfect English, but I asked her to speak in French so I could practice. My French is not awesome, so I mostly sat and tried to absorb the whole thing, grateful I wasn't losing a day to the rain but instead immersed in local art. Having something to do with my hands and eyes while feeling awkward is the kind of social grease I need in a foreign country.
In Barcelona, we make mosaics. The family spent our week wondering at Gaudi and wandering about the city. One morning, when the teens were still sleeping, the early-rising crew set out for a walk to the studio where we could make our own Gaudi-esque pieces. We could feel the tiles and mosaic bits and understand from experience what it was like to be a mosaic artist. Even better, I still have those handmade mementos from our travels.
We foraged for blackberries on a trip to the Pacific Northwest with my kids and their grandparents. There was laughter and pain, and many lessons in how to forge a path over a roadside ditch. We returned with many scratches, thorn holes, and enough berries for dessert. I used my homemade scone mix to make the biscuit top, and it was some of the best cobbler I have ever made. I don't know if it actually was, but the experience made it more so.
Once, in small town called Paciano, Umbria, Italy our grill was primitive, a simple hearth with a grate whose bars were so widely spaced we felt it must for a whole side of beef. We needed the local butcher to cut us a steak large and sturdy enough to not slip through the grate – and it alone was an adventure. A countryside butcher with sides of pig, lamb and cow hanging in the window, the chickens with remnants of feathers, my city kids with thier jaws agape... priceless. We grilled our massive cut over a wood fire that took ages. But we were…under the Umbrian sunset looking out at the countryside and trains – like the set of fantastic Mr. Fox - it was magical. We made our dinner and drank local wine, the kids played with fireflies It was a magical night crafted by hand. My favorite family portrait is from that night.
Because I am that girl that will drink out of whatever glass is in front of me, I wanted to bring wine glass markers on a girls' trip to Sonoma. So I brought along a kit of shrinky dinks – sheets of thin acrylic and paint pens to create our own special little trinkets that we affixed to wine glasses with glue dots. It was a fun activity and we all got to take home our wine charms to remember the trip!
I like to bring watercolors, pencils, and some watercolor paper, and it packs up surprisingly small. On a recent trip, the kids and I sat with a beautiful view of the Alps. I brought out the art supplies, and a few of us tried to sketch and then paint our version of the mountain. We aren't experts – I barely know how to draw. But it wasn't about the quality of the art; it was about quality time. You know those little watercolor postcards will hang in my halls -
These are the pencils I am currently using -- they are inexpensive and great for an amateur like me. https://a.co/d/eUHIycL
The bottom line? The simple art of crafting can bring you closer to your host country and closer to one another. The conversations we have while in the creative flow, hands busy, are time well spent. The knick-knacks we make by hand aren't just great shelf décor; they make great conversations and keep your memories alive.
More Creative Travel Activity Ideas:
Doodle or journal or both.
Pick flowers (stick to roadsides – no trespassing for flowers!) and press them into your book.
Dance at a local pub. Country line dancing in Ireland or Tango in Spain.
Take in an Opera in the streets of Barcelona.
Take the gallery tour of the sidewalks of Paris.
Washi tape roads and fold up paper town
Go to free museum day and try to copy one of the paintings
Do a cooking challenge with friends: each of you gather three ingredients from a local store that the other has to use in a dish
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