Nov 04 2008
A Travelogue in Books
There was a time when I liked museum gift shops almost as much as I liked the museums themselves. Museum shops always seem to have such unique, thought-provoking, beautiful items.
With kids, however, museums shops are basically dangerous. It’s hard to single-handedly keep four little kids from touching things, and tiresome to ward off their begging for trinkets. I’m not much for buying souvenirs on our travels; grandmas and grandpas are good enough to bring back mementos of their vacations, but for our own journeys, I figure we have the memories and the photos, so I don’t need to buy anything to remind us of the visit.
There’s one area, though, that’s my downfall: books. Specifically children’s books. I suppose it’s because I was a librarian in a former life, and got to go to library conferences where I’d have books autographed by Rosemary Wells and Tomie dePaola and Eric Carle, even before I had any children to share them with.
So now, it’s hard for me to pass up a good book when we’re out on our adventures. We have biographies of Grant Wood and Kate Shelley, books about the Hinckley Fire and the Great Chicago Fire, books autographed by authors like Jill Kalz and Rick Chrustowski, and our latest addition, a book about Wanda Gag. (I haven’t been to the Wanda Gag house in New Ulm, MN, yet, but the kids went there on a field trip last year.)
Books aren’t the cheapest of souvenirs, but neither are they the most expensive. They’re sharable, and able to be passed down to new adventurers, and helpful in recalling the details of a visit or writing a school report.
Yes, I think books are souvenirs we can be proud to have.
These are some of the books we’ve collected on our travels:
What types of souvenirs do you collect on your travels?
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Ooo, I’m very jealous of the Eric Carle autographed book! I’ve got a fair number of autographed books, but not an Eric Carle one. He’s one my kids’ favorite authors/illustrators, and I would so love to get them an autographed one - too bad he really doesn’t do book tours or anything.
We’re a big book family too. Somewhere I have a picture of all the children’s books we ended our trip to Italy with. It’s a HUGE stack. In Paris too, I loved the children’s book department at the Bon Marche & there was a wonderful selection of wordless books (including the adventures of Polo which is now available in the US)
When I’m here in the states, I have to admit that I don’t buy as many books on the road.. I’m more likely to take a digital photo & then order the books I love on Amazon when I return home.
The one exception is when we drive down to Portland. I always come back with a trunk full of books from Powells. I love their selection of out-of-print books!
Debbie Dubrow’s last blog post..DeliciousBaby Named 20th Most Popular Travel Blog!
Museum gift shops have long been my weakness. Love the books, of course, but I have a bad habit of collecting (too many) fridge magnets. It’s my weakness; no one needs as many fridge magnets as I have.
Very great post!
While this gift shop post here has nothing to do with books per se, it’s all about the gift shops.
MudslideMama’s last blog post..Motherhood of the Traveling Pants
I whole heartily agree, of course I’m the bookbabie so I would;)
bookbabie’s last blog post..(almost) wordless wednesday
I admitted that we are the souvenir junkies. Now that I read your post it gave me the idea of looking for book instead of toys or little stuff that they will forget 2 days later.
Right now, I tend to look for the ornament from my travel. I love to look at it during Christmas. I also buy Hard Rock Cafe pin.. I know.. not the best place to represent place I visit but I love their design for each location. Then my hubby loves to get his hand on Starbuck City collection wherever we go..
Amy @ The Q Family’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday: The Pumpkin Witch
On our honeymoon we bought a Christmas ornament…and the tradition began. Every time we visit someplace, we try to buy an ornament (or something that could work as an ornament) for our Christmas tree. It is so fun to pull them out and say “remember when?” as we decorate our tree. But once my girls are a little bigger, I love the idea of picking out books from our travels, too.
Courtney’s last blog post..Safeway deals 11/05-11/11
What a great idea! Promoting family travel and literacy at the same time, and much more useful than matchbooks or postcars. We haven’t started a souvenir tradition, but I’ll have to think about it.
Bridget Smith’s last blog post..Why Family Adventure Guidebooks?
We’re so bad about buying books on vacation! I remember shipping a huge box of dirty laundry home from Alaska so we could be sure to fit the books we bought up there into our luggage!! I’ve got a huge bag of books we just brought back from our most recent trip to Rhode Island and Connecticut…mostly museum store fodder, too.
College t-shirts, sweatshirts and hockey jerseys are one of our other weaknesses. I always come home with at least a few from each trip.
Come to think of it, a lot of my Christmas tree ornaments came from our travels over the years, too.
Oh…and CDs. We love to bring home local music.
I always say we can’t buy a lot of big items because our house is so small, but you can see why it’s still soooooo full!
You’ll love the books forever, though. I love picking up a book and reliving a trip I took last year, five years ago, twenty years ago…
We buy books. And more books. And even more books.
Even when we go to museums we buy books - photo books of the exhibits or something like the Pocket Guide to Egyptian Hieroglyphs my younger son insisted on the last time we passed through the British Museum.
wandermom’s last blog post..from all the traveling moms