Three Reasons to Organize Your Travel Photos and Three Quick Tips to Use on the Road
Do you love to travel, at least in a normal year? On your return drive or flight home, do you think about where you would like to go next? Do you take lots of photos when you travel, either with your phone or a camera or both? Videos? For me the answer to all of the above is a resounding YES! Travel is a passion of mine. I have almost as much fun planning a trip as I do taking it (almost, but not quite). And when I return I enjoy going through my photos to find the best ones. But that’s actually not my favorite part about having an organized photo collection. My favorite part is what you can do with your photos while you are on the road. So let’s take a look at what you can do with an organized travel photo collection.
The first two are obvious. First, some people like to share via email and social media while they are still on vacation, allowing friends and family to share in the adventure. Quick tip #1 if this is you – and you take a good photo you know you may want to share – favorite it right after you take it. Then at the end of the day or whenever you are ready to share, it is easy to find. Quick tip #2, set up a trip album on your phone at the beginning of your trip and add your photos to it daily. Then it is there for you to quickly find when you get back or 5 years later.
Second, I have found that social media is a fantastic way to crowd source vacation ideas. When I am planning a trip I will always throw out a post asking who has been to my future destination and asking what I can do there. I get A LOT of posts back from people who went but can’t remember exactly what the name of that special site was that they loved so much. Quick tip #3, caption one photo for each site or special place you visit while you are still on the road. It’s easy on your phone, and if you do enough of it, you will end up with an annotated journal of your trip.
Reynisfjara, Iceland. The boys stopped for a photo here then kept climbing.
But my favorite part of having all of my photos organized and with me when I travel is the third reason – comparisons we can make between destinations. My favorite comparison? I was in Iceland with my family and visited Reynisfjara on the south coast. It is a beautiful black sand beach with these massive hexagonal basalt columns. While my boys were climbing way (too far) up high, my younger son shouted down, “Mom! This is just like Giant’s Causeway!” We had been to Northern Ireland the year prior, and he was absolutely right. While in Northern Ireland we did not know that this unusual rock formation existed anywhere else, and we spent quite a bit of time exploring the rocks there. Once they came back down and I could breathe a little easier, we pulled out the photos to compare. Sure enough, they looked very much alike. It also got us talking about the myths surrounding both of these areas and how similar and different they were. I’ll repeat Quick Tip #3 here - add a keyword or caption to special photos right after you take them so you can easily find them later.
Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland. This is a magical place with great mythology full of giants and war.
Devil’s Tower, Wyoming. The boys didn’t climb this one, but only because we were short on time as we had to leave the dog (and dad) in the car.
We saw this type of rock one more time, last summer at Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming. Once again we pulled out the photos and had a nice discussion about geology and myth. I confess that the geology wasn’t as interesting to me, but the different stories and myths surrounding these places is fascinating. The accessibility of my photos facilitated these great discussions with my children and really added value to all three of these trips.
Not-so-quick tip #4: organize your photos so you have them accessible and searchable for when you want them. Contact me to help you today.