5 Ways To Commemorate Your Time Studying Abroad

Its almost here! Exactly 24 more days until I head out from Houston to Brighton! My summer has been anything but fun. I took 12 hours of classes this summer including anatomy and physiology I & II and developmental psych. Honestly, I never thought it would end. In between studying everyday, I somehow managed to sort out my housing situation, apply for my Tier 4 Student Visa, apply to University of Texas at Austin and University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston’s spring 2016 nursing program, and interview for UTMB. To say i’m pooped out is an understatement – or in literal anatomical terms, “my rectum is devoid of feces.”

I’ve only just started thinking about what I wanted to do to really commemorate, or remember my study abroad experience. It’s the biggest most adventurous thing i’ve decided to do with my life thus far, and dang nabbit I want to remember every little detail once it’s over! All the way down to what my best meal was in London and how much it costs. So without further ado, here are the FIVE things I plan to do to commemorate my time studying abroad.

---

1. Start a Travel Blog

Obviously I have started Casual Detour as a means to blog about my journey abroad. It’s a great way to summarize your experiences and share it onto multiple social media platforms. Not only is it an amazing conduit to share your journey with friends and family, it can be used as a resource for other students preparing for their study abroad experience! This blog’s niche is very much about student traveling on a budget. Furthermore, my nerdy self will talk about my experiences with healthcare/National Health Service while in England (and yes, I have considered faking an injury just to see first hand how the British healthcare system functions).

Setting up a blog can be hefty work. I’ve found that I Am Eileen’s How To Start A Travel Blog From Scratch: Your Ultimate Guide as the best resource in guiding me on what steps to take to start this blog. On this blog, she gives great tips on coming up with a blog name, logo, choose themes, etc. No idea what to write about? Girl VS Globe’s 50 Travel Blog Post Ideas is what I plan on referring to when i’m out of ideas. I also am holding myself to a schedule of posting AT LEAST once a week/a week and a half at most.

2. Keep a Journal

I bought two amazing leather journals for cheap at Marshalls ($11 each) that I’m so excited to use. I love cute stationary and usually I buy them just for that reason and they stay on my desk, sad from being unused. However, this time they will actually have a purpose. These two journals have amazing quotes in elegant typography which drew me to them. One, “Story of my life” quotes One Direction (Haha, kidding. They don’t even write the majority of their own music) and the other is a quote by Jay Phillips which reads, “Find what brings you joy and go there”. They’re very aptly named and I can’t wait to scribble in them! Alternatively, you can always find a journal at your study abroad location or destination. The journal would be a souvenir within itself and house all the memories you’ve made there.

From Home to Roam recommends carrying your journal with you everywhere, but personally, I believe I could use the extra space for more important things (i.e. the clunky instax mini polaroid camera my older sister let me borrow). Instead, I plan on writing on the notes app in my cellphone during downtimes in between my weekend trips or free school nights. I will /try/ to journal every night. Emphasis on the TRY, as I am not a perfect human being and I’d rather be binge watching Netflix. She also recommends carrying a Zipblock bag to keep tickets, receipts, pamphlets, or anything that indicates your location and time. This should be easy for me as I’ve inherited the crazy receipt hoarding trait that runs in my family.

Journeywoman also has great tips for journaling. I’m definitely going to take her idea of making my journal be “interactive” by having the people I meet sign or write an entry in the book. This would be a great way to keep in touch or at least remember who they are. I imagine it would be great when living in hostels on my weekend traveling trips. It’ll be like a high school yearbook but without the awkward transitional puberty pictures or glitter pen scribbles of “H.A.G.S”.

I plan to use the “story of my life” journal as my daily journal while the “find what brings you joy and go there” journal as the ones containing my paper souvenirs and interactive travel entries.

3. Drown Yourself In Polaroids

It doesn’t have to be polaroids per se. This is just the route I’ve taken as I’m fond of polaroids. As long as you are diligent about taking photos and making a hardcopy of them, it will do. I’ve ordered a 100 pack of instax mini film from eBay ($0.72/film). This was the cheapest price I could find per film. I also found and purchased a Groupon deal by Printerpix offering 5″X4″ custom Instagram prints, an $86.90 value, for $20. Groupon often has deals on photo prints and do “good promotions” with additional 10% or 20% of good purchases that you may be able to apply to your deal too. Keep an eye out and check regularly! If you are new to Groupon, sign up using this link to get $10 off your first purchase!

The app Groove Book allows you to choose pictures from your phone and prints up to 100 photos into a keepsake photo book for just $4 (including shipping and handling). These photos are made to be easily torn off the binding. Another alternative is Chatbooks which is a similar phone application service. They offer a binded book (non tearable) of 60 photos for $6 with free shipping. Note, this price is only for the Instagram series! I made the mistake of creating my own custom book and paid WAY more than $6 for it but am pleased with the results. But since I’m a poor college student, I would definitely prefer Groove Book this next time around. These photo books are great ways to keep your family updated on what you’re up to while away from home studying abroad as they are subscription services and send monthly. Sure you could always shoot your parents a text of the photos and save some money, but something about using hardcopy photos seems more intimate and permanent than digital pixels.

4. Send A Postcard

 My aunt Christine always buy a postcard to send to my cousin Kevin on every trip she goes too. Vice versa, he does the same thing when he travels. Postcards are really inexpensive and there are always plenty of options to choose from. If you don’t have anyone in mind that you want to send your postcards to, you can always send them to yourself! I plan on sending several to my friends and family members but the majority of them to myself. Once return from studying abroad, the postcards would be piling high and make a great section for any scrapbooking I want to do. Think Saturday Morning Vintage‘s kind of scrapbooking shown below. 

5. Video Blog Your Entire Adventure

A.k.a. “Vlogging” is something I am seriously considering doing while on my trip. I watch fashion, travel, and daily vlogs on youtube all the time and see the benefits of having moving memories of my experience. I do find the task daunting. “Do I have a camera with good enough quality to record? How do I even edit my videos? What if I get weird looks talking into a camera (I imagine the judgementmenta eye leers to be on par those given to people using selfie sticks – of which i’m guilty of doing)? Should I upload them to youtube?”

These are only a few of the questions i’ve asked myself on vlogging. The most important question however is “How do I want to present my time abroad?” There are many styles of vlogging including informal daily vlogging, edited and produced vlogging, and travel tour guide vlogging. I do know that I want my videos to be polished and entertaining. How am I going to do that? No idea yet! But i’m adamant on commemorating my time abroad this way too.

• Do you have any other ways or ideas to commemorate your time abroad?
• How is/was your experience on keeping a travel journal?
• Do you have any tips on video blogging your adventure? Or are you equally intimidated at the concept as I am?
• What do you regret not doing while studying abroad to commemorate your trip?

Comment below to share your experiences or to add any additional tips to future students studying abroad.