4 Ways to Extend Your Post-Travel High

All great vacations must come to an end sometime, but the feel-good aftermath of a trip doesn’t have to.

The New York Times’ Stephanie Rosenbloom suggested in a column that surrounding yourself with tchotchkes, receipts and photos can help ensure your post-trip satisfaction lasts longer. My travel memory-extending tricks go beyond that:

Use a linen spray during your travels, then resurrect it when you’re home. I won a travel tip contest on Rick Steves’ website almost 20 years ago with this tidbit, and I still use it today. When I travel, I bring along a small bottle of scented linen spray, such as the five-ounce aromatherapy pillow mists that Bath & Body Works sells. I use it to spruce up two-day-old clothing, stale-smelling bed sheets and musty rooms.

When I get home, I tuck the bottle away for a couple of months — this is key, because the scent won’t hold trip-specific memories if you continue to use it on a daily basis. After time, I bring it out and give it a spray, and I’m suddenly taken back to my week on the beach on the Costa del Sol in Spain. I can even recall the breeze coming in my hostel window — smell memories are that powerful.

Mail yourself postcards. Okay, so postcards may be passe in the big bad Digital Age, but that doesn’t make them any less nice to receive. When I first arrive in a city, I buy a few and tuck them away in my bag. When I’m having a relaxed moment — one time, it was while polishing off a no-name red table wine in a side-street taverna in Rome — I take the time to jot a postcard.

Usually I’ll merely describe what I’m doing in that moment. At the time it might feel ordinary, but later it becomes a special memory, full of detail I might not otherwise remember — the weather, the people at nearby tables, how thankful I was to be wearing a dark sweater when I dribbled half a glass of wine on myself.

Travel Smarter! Sign up for our free newsletter.

By proceeding, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

Sign Up

Continue to follow the social media feeds of your destinations’ tourist boards. Before a recent trip to New Mexico, I started following the Facebook feeds for Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos’ tourism offices. The pages were useful for building ideas for my trip.

But I’ve found it even more enjoyable to follow them in the months since. Oh, the band I saw perform at the Mine Shaft Tavern in Madrid, NM, is there again this weekend! Look — the chef who made that fabulous green chile cheeseburger we devoured late one night just won a cooking contest! Snow is starting to fall on those mountains we hiked!

This is a great way to stay connected to the places you fell in love with.

Buy yourself gifts at a grocery store. I usually blow all my money on gifts for other people, but lately I’ve started buying meaningful foodstuffs and ingredients that I can bring home for myself.

En route to the airport in Nairobi for my departing flight, I asked my taxi driver to stop at a supermarket, where I bought several boxes of Ketepa Pride tea bags. Even today, when I prepare a cup, I always remember the afternoons on safari when all the other guests were napping and I stayed up to caffeinate myself and watch the zebras and wildebeests grazing on the savanna just across a ravine from our camp.

What’s your best tip for preserving the memory of a vacation? Share it in the comments below.