Thirteen Creative Ideas to Revisit Your Favourite Vacation Destinations and Memories Anytime.

 

Have you ever returned from a fabulous vacation with a camera or phone full of stunning photos, only to leave them neglected in a digital folder, never to be seen or shared again? Whether it’s a sun-soaked beach, a candid family moment, or breathtaking scenery, your vacation photos tell stories worth revisiting. They deserve more than just a fleeting glance on your camera roll.

In this post, I’ve rounded up 13 fun and engaging ways to revisit your favourite destinations and memories whenever you want. From crafting personalised photo books and creating mesmerising slideshows to transforming your photos into jigsaw puzzles and flipbooks, these ideas will inspire you to bring your vacation memories to life so you can enjoy them time and again and share them with family and friends.

 

Use these quick links to jump straight to different creative ideas in the post:

• Organise your photos
• Post and share your vacation photos on Facebook
• Post and share your vacation photos on Instagram
• Create a photo book of your vacation photos
• Use your vacation photos to create a calendar
• Create a vacation photo flipbook
• Make a photo wall of your vacation photos
• Transform your favourite vacation photo into a jigsaw puzzle
• Turn your vacation photos into a movie
• Create a slideshow with your vacation photos
• Keep a vacation diary
• Turn your vacation story and photos into a printed book
• Print your favourite vacation photos on clothing, coasters, phone cases, and more
• Sell your vacation photos
• A note on backing up your photos

 

Organise your photos

Organising your photos might seem obvious, but it is a critical step if you want to find your photos again.

So often, I have had people scroll through the photos on their phones, looking for a specific photo to show me. By the time they find the photo, I have lost interest in seeing it. Does this sound familiar?

Let me set the scene. You have a photo on your phone that you want to share on Instagram, Facebook, or with a friend. You have never sorted your photos into meaningful ‘albums’ in your phone’s Photos app. You have hundreds of photos on your phone. You now spend 20 minutes scrolling through all your photos looking for that ‘one’. Do you still want to post on Instagram or Facebook? Has your friend lost interest in seeing the photo?

The situation is worse if the photo you want has been taken with a camera and uploaded to your computer or tablet. All you get is a file number, which you must click on to see the photo. This is even more time-consuming than scrolling through photos on your phone. At least on your phone, the photo is immediately presented.

The moral of the story is that if you want to show off your vacation photos, you need to organise your photos – like a filing cabinet. It will save so much time later on.

This post now assumes two things:

1. You have chosen the photos you want to use.
2. You have applied some editing techniques (optional) to your photos.

This post is not a ‘how-to’ post. That is, it is not about ‘how to post’ photos on Facebook or Instagram; it’s not about ‘how to make’ a photo book or calendar; it’s not about ‘how to produce’ a slideshow; and so forth.

This post is about planting the seed and posing ideas for what you can do with your vacation photos.

Post and share your vacation photos on Facebook

Share your vacation photos with family and friends on Facebook – a website allowing users to socially network with others online. Once you have created a free Facebook profile, you can share your photos with family and friends.

Broaden your sharing horizons and join travel photography and specific destination groups on Facebook.

Facebook is available on any device with an internet connection. Because Facebook is web-based, as long as you have internet access, you can post your vacation photos while travelling and not wait until you get home.

Post and share your vacation photos on Instagram

Instagram is a free app for sharing photos and videos of your vacation. Unlike Facebook, a versatile platform, Instagram is photo-centric and mobile-centric. The Instagram app is available on iPhone and Android phones.

Once you create an Instagram account, you can upload your vacation photos and videos and then have the option to share them with a select group of friends who also have an Instagram account or with people who have chosen to follow your account.

Create a photo book of your special vacation photos

 

A photo book is a great way to share your special vacation memories in a printed format. A photo book is a compilation of your chosen photos that create a visual story. While the photos are the primary message, you can add notes and captions to complement your photo story.

An internet search for photo book services/makers is overwhelming for choices. My search of the five best photo book services/makers in the USA, UK, and Australia showed Snapfish to be the only one appearing on all three lists. I have used Snapfish, but only for making a birthday card and printing a photo on a mug.

With so many photo book services available, how do you choose the right one for you and your photo book project? How do you know what you should take into consideration? ‘Choice’ is Australia’s highly credible, unbiased, and well-respected product and service review organisation. Choice has published an article that you may find helpful,

How to find the best photo book service: Our expert guide to price, comparing services, design and tips to build the best book.

If you have Adobe Lightroom, you can make a photo book in the Book Module and have it printed by Blurb.

Suzi Pratt, in her blog post for the Digital Photography School, 8 Ideas of What To Do With Your Vacation Photos, writes:

“Some photos simply pop and look better when they’re physically printed in book form. Consider putting together your top vacation photos and getting them printed via a service.

I recently used Zno and was impressed with their high-quality printing and the fact that the images lay flat without the book gutter running through them. Another service called ChatBooks is a little more automated and can sync your Instagram or Facebook photos into a book design for printing.”

Having created the photo book of your favourite photos from your vacation, don’t hide it in a cupboard or tucked into your bookcase. Keep it on your coffee table so you, your family, and friends can enjoy those photos any time. You might be surprised how many people will pick up and browse through your photo book.

Use your vacation photos to create a calendar

A calendar makes a beautiful photo gift for yourself, family, and friends. It’s practical, too, and fun to create!

You only need the free version of Canva to create a calendar.

You can create several products in Canva, where you can place a print order and have it delivered straight to you. Calendars, unfortunately, are not one of those. Save your calendar and find a printer to bring your creation to life.

The bonus with using Snapfish to create your calendar is the ability to create, order, and pay all online within their website. It will then be shipped straight to you.

Many online options are available for creating a calendar from your vacation photos.

Create a vacation flipbook

To create a photo flipbook, print your favourite vacation photos (with a flipbook for each separate vacation), punch a hole or two in the top left corner (one hole) or across the top (two holes) of each photo, and then hold them together with a hinged ring through the hole or holes.

 

The single-hole punch is best suited for a collection of photos that are a mix of photos in landscape (horizontal) and portrait (vertical) orientations.

A two-hole punched collection of photos can also be used as a frameless photo, using the other photos to create an A-frame stand.

Photos held together by a single hinged ring will stand as an ‘A-frame’ in portrait orientation but not so well when displaying a landscape photo in the pack.

 

Like your photo book, don’t hide your flipbook in a cupboard; leave it on your coffee table.

Make a photo wall of your vacation photos

 

Create a photo gallery on a wall in your home – a photo wall. This is a fun way to showcase your favourite vacation photos, keeping those memories alive, and it creates a talking point when visitors come to your home.

Your photo wall may comprise one photo from each vacation that sums up your vacation and captures the ‘heart and soul’ of your vacation – the one photo that tells the whole story of your vacation experience. Or, like me, your photo wall may be an eclectic mix of photos from various trips.

How you display your photos on your photo wall is entirely up to you – framed, printed on tiles, glass or canvas, or just stuck on the wall. Let your decorative style take hold.

Transform your favourite vacation photo into a jigsaw puzzle

For Christmas 2018, my adult children had one of my photos from my trip to Morocco transformed into a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

I was thrilled with this present. However, I often cursed my children as I tried to complete the jigsaw because they probably chose the most complex photo. As you can see from my progress photo below, I still had not finished it 18 months later. Even so, I advocate for this creative idea as a gift for yourself, your family, or friends.

Once you have completed your jigsaw, you can have it mounted, framed, and hung on your wall.

An internet search for, for example, “personalised jigsaw puzzles” or “turn photos into jigsaw puzzles” will reveal numerous services. To localise your search and make it more relevant, you can refine your search by adding your country, such as “personalised jigsaw puzzles australia/uk/usa/nz.”

Snapfish, a worldwide photo products maker, makes custom jigsaw puzzles from your photos. It is easy to create yourself and have it shipped to you.

Turn your vacation photos into a movie

Would you like to watch a movie of your vacation photos on television?

 

Those of you with an Apple device can create a movie of your vacation photos in iMovie, adding background music, time duration, transitions, and narration (voice-over). Once created and saved (exported), you can burn your vacation movie on a DVD or stream it on your television.

I have created six movies from my photos in iMovie and have been thrilled with the results. I burn my movies to DVDs. They are time-consuming to produce, but there’s something special about seeing the places you have been to on the big screen.

Don’t have an Apple device? An internet search of “software similar to iMovie for Windows” presented many options worth trying.

Create a slideshow with your vacation photos

Like movies, slideshows are a great way to present your favourite vacation photos. You can create a slideshow in Adobe Lightroom’s Slideshow module. However, unlike iMovie, you are not able to narrate your slideshow.

Slideshows can also be created using Google Photos and Microsoft PowerPoint. With both these options, you can apply time duration, transitions, effects, and background music, but not narration.

I had fun creating a free online photo slideshow maker with Pholody. To benefit from all the features of this free online slideshow maker, use Google Chrome. Once created, your slideshow is downloadable and shareable as an mp4 video file.

You can create your own free YouTube account using your Google account. This enables you to stream your vacation slideshow on your TV and (depending on your privacy settings) share it with family and friends.

Keep a vacation diary

One of the best ways to revisit your vacation is to keep a digital vacation diary, making daily entries and uploading photos as you go. By sharing the link to your diary online, your friends and family can read it and see where you are and what you are doing as you update it.

There are many online travel diaries available. I use Travel Diaries.

Travel Diaries is easy to use, and editing is a breeze. I can customise the fonts and layouts of my diaries, add as many photos as I wish, and include location and route maps. I share my diary entries with my family as I travel.

Turn your vacation story and photos into a printed book

 

Take your digital vacation diary and photos one step further and turn them into a printed book, allowing you to revisit your vacation time and again. There is something special about holding a physical book full of memories.

With Travel Diaries, you can order your completed diary as a printed book from within the app.

“Back home? Transform your unforgettable travel memories into tangible keepsakes! Print a beautifully crafted book of your travel adventures with Travel Diaries. Relive every moment, from picturesque landscapes to thrilling escapades, in stunning detail. Just as you imagined!”

Print favourite vacation photos on clothing, coasters, phone cases, and more

Creative ideas for using and sharing your photos are only as limited as your imagination. With so many apps and services available, your photos can be printed on a wide range of products.

Suzi Pratt, in her blog post for the Digital Photography School, 8 Ideas of What To Do With Your Vacation Photos, writes:

“Thanks to printing companies such as Zazzle, you can print your photos on a wide range of objects. T-shirts, magnets, and mugs might seem like traditional items on which you tend to find custom printed photos. But did you know that your photo can be printed on an iPhone case, blanket, pillow, bathmat, Zippo lighter, playing cards, and even a skateboard?”

Snapfish is undoubtedly worth a look as it offers so many products on which to print your vacation photos – mugs, drink bottles, coasters, stubby holders, phone cases, pencil cases, keyrings, dog tags, playing cards, cushion covers, fridge magnets, blankets, mousepads, shopping bags, Christmas decorations, and more.

I have a coffee mug with one of my favourite elephant photos (pictured below). I would like to print some of my favourite vacation photos on cushion covers.

 

Sell your vacation photos

Turn your vacation photos into money. And you don’t have to be a professional photographer!

My internet search found the following services were the most frequently identified top places to sell your photos online: Shutterstock, Alamy, Adobe Stock, and 500px.

Alexandra Bateman (March 18, 2020) at Envira Gallery shares the 10+ Best Places to Sell Photos Online and Make Money. This article is not just a list but provides detailed information on each suggested option.

I sell a selection of my travel photos online on the following platforms: iStock, Alamy, Shutterstock, and Adobe Stock. I don’t upload any photos with recognisable people, as that requires a model release, which is a hassle!

A note on backing up your photos

As well as storing your photos directly on your device (e.g., the hard drive on your computer, laptop, or smartphone), you can store them in the “cloud”.  Cloud storage involves storing your files remotely on servers owned by companies that are accessible to you from any device with an internet connection. This is a safe means for backing up your photos.

I am an advocate for backing up photos. Imagine how you would feel if you lost all your photos because your computer, laptop, tablet, or phone crashed, and that was the only place you had your photos stored.

There are many cloud storage service providers. The best known (because they are the only ones I know of) are Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive (which gives you access to Google Photos), and Microsoft OneDrive.

These cloud storage service providers offer free file storage with varying degrees of limitations. They are available on various operating system platforms and devices, such as Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.

Backup now!

 

Your vacation photos are more than just snapshots – they are windows into cherished memories and unforgettable adventures. Using the ideas in this post, you can transform your photos into tangible, interactive mementos that will allow you to revisit the joy, excitement, and wonder of your travels anytime. Whether it’s a personalised photo book, a custom calendar, or a set of coasters featuring your favourite snapshots, there are numerous ways to keep the magic of your vacations alive.

So, don’t let your vacation photos gather dust in a digital folder. Give them the attention they deserve and create something truly special.

 

Editor’s Note: I originally published this blog post in June 2020 and have updated it for accuracy, comprehensiveness, and relevance.

 

Disclaimer: This post contains no affiliate links. All views and opinions are my own and unsponsored. Unless otherwise stated, all photos are my own and remain the copyright of Joanna Rath/Just Me Travel.

© Just Me Travel 2018-2024. All rights reserved.

 

How will you showcase your vacation photos? Share your favourite ways in the comments – I’d love to hear about your creative ideas!

If you have any questions or would like to know what tools I use, email me at joanna@justme.travel or leave a comment.

 

Like this post? Save it for Later!

 

Author’s Note: Please check the latest travel restrictions before planning any trip and follow government advice.

 

Sign up to receive the latest in travel destinations, topics, resources and guides.

Name:

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you're human: