Foreign Travel Souvenirs

Table of Contents

I. Souvenir Strategy

II. Miscelaneous 19 yrs of souvenirs

Foreign Travel Souvenirs

My policy has always been to buy souvenirs that were:
    1) locally made by locals or local hill tribes 
    2) small, had some relevance to my ACTUAL Travel
    2) seldom for others, except for the then young daughter of a RV mechanic for whom I had also purchased a multi year subscription to National Geographic because my friend told me she was thrilled when she received them and highly protective of her collection.  Inspire curiosity.

On my Bali trip hosted by my high school friend and her eight other girlfriends (I prudently kept my mouth shut … and they actually liked me.) many of them spent $300 to $400 to send  a pile of souvenirs back to US for whomever. 

IMO, souvenirs for folks back home sounds nice, but is analogous to charitable giving — it REALLY makes the sender feel good about themselves. IMO, souvenirs for friends, etc. back home are usually just a way of saying I was foreign traveling and you were not. "Aren’t I great!).  I know as a nice person these thoughts may annoy you, but they are my opinions. 

Anecdote: My friend's wife’s sister’s Xmas gift: the Christmas gift was so ugly that they stored it in the basement until they displayed it just before their sister would arrive.

IMO, souvenirs are like photos, in that they are static symbols of important or memorable experiences in my traveler's life. They often recall the villager who made the souvenir that I bought from them giving it even more special meaning. 

The handmade & engraved ear rings pictured below I bought from 2 hill tribe women beside the street on a Saturday morning in a small town, Bac Ha town, many miles NE of Sapa, N of Hanoi, N Vietnam. Just looking at it, even now, conjures up images of the two gnarled ladies & their wares seated on the roadside that Saturday morning as well as other images and experiences I had in that town & surrounds.