Vacationing through the photos.

In these tough economic times a vacation my not be in the budget. Thumbing through a friends vacation scrapbook or helping a friend or family member assemble a vacation scrapbook may be a good alternative. Vacationing in Italy would be a wonderful and beautiful place to visit. Although I have never been, I feel as if I have due to vacationing through the photos. Several years ago my younger sister went to Italy for 10 days on a trip organized through the local college. She had never scrapbooked a day in her life and I wanted her to have a wonderful album she could reminisce about her trip. During the planning of the trip and the weeks leading up to it, I talked to her about taking plenty of photos and saving all her memorabilia. I had no idea at the time that she would take 10 rolls of film! She saved airline tickets, receipts for meals, guide pamphlets, her itinerary, ticket stubs, and just anything else she thought might be used in the scrapbook.

After having the photos developed, we sat down and went over the stories behind the pictures and grouped them into categories. I jotted down as much information about the different events and places she visited in order to include this information in the scrapbook. For her Italy album I arranged it in chronological order, labeling each section accordingly; Day One, Day Two, Day Three, and so on. Each event or site that was visited was labeled as well. Journaling then was done with the information that she shared with me about each location. Space was also left for her to add her own journaling for her feelings and thoughts about her visit and the sights she had encountered. Vacationing through the photos gave me the feeling that I had taken a fabulous trip to Italy as well. The only difference was that my trip was much less expensive and no jet lag.