Collecting souvenirs is certainly nothing new. Almost everyone, from occasional vacationers to career travelers, like to bring home something tangible to remember a trip.

If you want to break out the dictionary, souvenirs are objects people acquire for the memories associated with them. They bring big business to the tourism industry by promoting local businesses and providing word-of-mouth marketing long after a trip is over.

However, what I find interesting is the type of souvenirs people choose and why. My childhood friend collects thimbles when she travels. My grandma collects bells. And my coworker collects scarves. When I think about these three women and consider why they’re collecting what they’re collecting, the answers are obvious. My childhood friend is crafty, my grandma used to be a teacher, and my coworker loves fashion. 

What about me? For the past decade, my souvenir of choice has been the shot glass. I’ve picked up shot glasses from touristy spots like Niagara Falls and Vegas.

I’ve collected them from destinations I’ve fallen in love with on international trips, like Ireland and London.

I’ve also picked up my fair share of shot glasses from random cities I’ve found myself in from time to time, like Atlanta and San Diego.

If you know me at all, it isn’t surprising why rows of shot glasses line my window sill as evidence of my travels. Plain and simple, I like to drink. Bloody Mary’s, pumpkin beer, margaritas, vodka with anything…you name it and it’s probably on my mind at most times on most days. Not only are souvenir shot glasses easy to find in almost all locations, they also come in handy for hosting parties and for those occasional crappy days.

During the past year, however, I have found myself collecting a new type of souvenir….the topographical map bandana. Much less common than the shot glass, the topographical map bandana is most often found at national park visitor centers. Last Spring, I picked up a Wildflowers of Yosemite banana on my camping/hiking trip in California.

I was excited to find a bandana in Zion National Park while on a canyoneering trip in Utah last Summer.

Perhaps I’m being overly introspective today, but I can’t help but notice that the shift in my souvenir preferences seem to mirror the shift in my life preferences. For the past year, I have found much more happiness while outdoor adventuring than I do in incessant partying. I’m pushing thirty and my hangovers get worse every damn weekend. I’ve been to enough bars, talked to enough strangers, and spent more money on booze than I’d like to admit.

Don’t get me wrong, I still thoroughly enjoy my adult beverages. But these days, I am most satisfied, most at peace, and most like the version of myself I want to me when I’m in nature. That’s not a shameless pitch for my blog, it’s the truth.

With that being said, the key to life is balance. So these days, I buy shot glasses AND bandanas when I travel. I figure, why not satisfy both sides of myself if I can spare a few extra bucks?

So now the question is, what’s your souvenir of choice?

I have a vague childhood memory of my dad plopping me on a pony for a photo op at the state fair. Besides that, I’d never so much as petted a horse. That all changed one a recent weekend when my boyfriend and I went horseback riding for the first time.

Prior to our horse-filled day, I contacted Dream A Horse, which is a horse rental company outside of Eagle, Wisconsin. I booked a one-hour guided ride on the Kettle Morraine trail. The owner, Owen, emailed me a map of the dream a horse eagle parking lot, which was to be our meeting spot before the ride.

Dream A Horse currently offers one-hour Kettle Moraine Trail rides for $30 and three-hour Eagle Trail rides for $60. For my first time, I figured one hour on a horse would be plenty.

This family-owned business was run efficiently and the guides had the horses ready to go when we arrived at the trail head. Stairs were set up to assist us in mounting the horses, which was considerably more challenging than cowboy movies lead us to believe.

The guides instructed us about “horse commands” to tell the horse when to turn, when to halt, and when to get a move on. I never really felt like my horse, Scarlett, ever truly understood me. Perhaps it was it was my unfamiliar voice or the uncertainty of my tone. Or perhaps she and I just didn’t see eye to eye.

I can’t honestly say that Scarlett, ever went very fast. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t nervous about her bucking me off at every turn. I had visions of myself being thrown off of her back and trampled in a horrific accident. Fortunately, Scarlett didn’t share my fears and trotted along in methodical form.

My boyfriend was somehow more comfortable on his horse, Prince, despite his equal lack in horse experience. Regardless, both of us are looking forward to more horseback riding in the near future. Since winter is approaching, we are thinking some snowy trails might be nice…as long as someone re-teaches me all those horse commands.

Although Vancouver’s Stanley Park is a popular tourist attraction, it is unbelievably easy to uncover peace and solitude among its wooded trails and rocky beaches. After a long day of sightseeing, I find myself needing to step away from the crowds, take a deep breath, and recharge. Miles of wooded trail lead me towards an vacant beach lined with peculiarly stacked rock formations. Although the city skyline is prominent in the distance, it is flanked by an equally impressive skyline of cedar and spruce trees.

Somewhere in this vast park, tourists and locals are dining at The Teahouse, riding a miniature train, and swimming in the public pool. But the only sounds I hear are the ocean waves brushing against the shore, the horn of a barge in the distance, and the shuffling of my feet in the sand. As the sun begins to set, I let my eyes soak up a final image and mentally prepare myself to migrate from nature to civilization. With a twinge of reluctance, I cannot help but notice how the pristine trail back to my Jeep shows no signs of human disturbance.  Stanley Park strikes a nearly perfect balance between the beauty of the city and the beauty of nature. Never have I felt so close to the world around me, but yet so far away.

I went on my first overseas trip to Ireland in the Spring of 2009. I had been planning this vacation with two of my high school girlfriends for the past year. I had done all of my research. I had packed all the right things. I had everything under control….except my health.

These are five ways that I coped with being sick on my first overseas journey.

1. Create a cocktail of prescription medication and alcohol

My travel companions, Jen and Janet, boarded the plane with me and we settled in for our overnight flight from Chicago to Dublin. I was coughing, sneezing, and blowing my nose every minute. I figured the best strategy was to sleep it off, in hopes of waking up refreshed and healthy. Jen offered me a high-dose prescription sleeping pill, and I downed it with an Amstel Lite the flight attendant brought me.

Within about twenty minutes, the plane started spinning. I was dizzy and sweating profusely. Perfect. I felt my on-flight dinner creeping up from my stomach as I crawled over Jen and Janet’s laps to run to the lavatory. I slept six hours in a pill/beer cocktail stupor. Thanks near-fatal drug cocktail!

2. Spend a lot of time outdoors in cold, rainy environments 

Ireland in May is very rainy, windy, and averages about 50 degrees every day. Although my travel mates and I packed sweaters and umbrellas, we were constantly walking around in the rain to get from one historic castle to another in and around Dublin.

The worst weather day just so happened to be the day we planned to spend the most time outdoors in Killarney National Forest. Bright and early, we boarded a train to Killarney to do some hiking, canoe, and island exploring. Our favorite part of the area was Muckross Abbey, which was an island we reached by canoe.

There were ancient preserved ruins from a monastery and leper colony from the 11th to 13th centuries. After a full day of exploring, we started making our way towards the park exit. However, we didn’t have a map, we had no idea where we were going, and a torrential downpour started. Hours later, we finally saw a recognizable building and made it out of Killarney National Forest. However, this outing certainly didn’t help my sickness whatsoever.

3. Drink excessive amounts of heavy beer 

Back in Dublin, Jen, Janet, and I did the requisite tour of the Guinness Storehouse. This tour took us on a journey of five levels, each of which including drinking Guinness. It was at this time that I learned that both Jen and Janet hated heavy beer. I love beer of all shapes, sizes, and varieties, and I’m more than willing to help out my friends in need.

Not only did I finish my beers at each of the tour’s floors, but I also finished my friends’ beers so they wouldn’t go to waste. I’ve heard people say that alcohol kills germs, but I’m pretty sure that this level of heavy drinking set my recovery back a bit.

4. Flirt with the hot Bed and Breakfast owner 

After we had seen most of the main sites in Dublin, my travel mates and I took a train to Cork. We found a quaint little town that was very inviting and intriguing. I had booked us reservations for two nights at a bed and breakfast along one of the main streets in Cork.

As soon as we rang the doorbell, we were greeted with a friendly welcome by a very handsome gentleman, who invited us sit down for afternoon tea. I couldn’t stop staring at the attractive bed and breakfast owner and told my travel mates that I would make him my husband, move to Cork, and help him run business.

With my runny, red nose and my periodic coughing fits, I felt anything but attractive myself. However, I mustered up the courage to go strike up a conversation with my “future husband”. Not more than three minutes into the small talk conversation, I felt a sneezing fit coming on and let out eighteen sneezes in a row without stopping. I was mortified and he had a look of pity in his eye. Needless to say, I do not live in Cork and I am not married to a hot bed and breakfast owner.

5. Get a tattoo

I have always loved Celtic artwork and got a Celtic spiral with a henna design tattooed on my hip many years ago. Before my trip to Ireland, I picked out a design for my next tattoo, which was a Celtic compass star. The design for this tattoo was based off a song that I wrote the previous year. The chorus was :

No star to guide through the desert,
No compass to guide through the sea,
Footsteps sink into the beaten path,
Towards where I’m meant to be.

It was difficult to find a tattoo parlor in Dublin, but we finally found one. The tattoo artist working there was a very nice young woman with many beautiful tattoos of her own. By this point in the trip, I had completely lost my voice. In whispers, I explained to the tattoo artist how I had decided upon this particular tattoo. For some reason, she automatically assumed that I was a famous singer-songwriter from the States and that my voice was gone because of my recent shows. I played along and didn’t see any need to reveal to her that I was an unpublished songwriter with walking pneumonia.

All I’d ever wanted was to escape the Amish town I’d spent my entire life in. I’m not Amish, but for some reason, my parents chose to move there after I was born. College was the best excuse to escape this village of Arthur, Illinois, which seemed to be centered in the exact middle of nowhere. But it was Thanksgiving break, a time for obligatory family visits. So RJ, my roommate and best friend since preschool, and made the three and a half hour southbound journey.

“I’m losing an ounce of freedom every mile you drive,” RJ muttered under his breath.

Before we even crossed the county line, a familiar smell started seeping in my truck. Horse shit. Arthur always reeked of horse shit. Those damn Amish horse and buggies practically outnumber the cars down here. Gray clouds hung over the harvested farm fields as we passed the sign, “Arthur: Population 2,100.”

Following mandatory family dinners and ignoring my mom’s advice that “Nothing good happens after dark”, RJ and I thought it would be amusing to check out the lone bar in Arthur, The Heidelberg. As we walked in, a buggy blasting Bon Jovi from a battery-operated stereo clip-clopped  by. At least Rumspringa,  the time when Amish youths got to briefly experience the real world, hadn’t changed a bit. Oddly, that “real world” always involved 80’s music, 90’s clothing, and outdated haircuts.

The Heidelberg was dark and smoky, but packed full of almost-forgotten faces.

“Isn’t that Paul Singer’s mom?” RJ questioned as he sipped a watered down rum and coke.

“Oh my god…Jennifer got fat! Wait! Is that a baby in the bar?” I yanked his sleeve and pointed.

Former classmates stopped to chat about their factory jobs at Schrock’s, the local cabinet company, and the latest scripture studies at Bible study. RJ and I were practically the only two in our class to go to college. For the first time, it was difficult relate to these people we used to be so close to. That was the first and last time we ever went to The Heidelberg.

We hopped in my truck, I turned the key, but nothing happened. Again. Nothing.  A dead battery? How could I have left my headlights on?  Barely two minutes passed before Glen, the one and only Arthur cop, pulled up beside me.

“You two! Never thought I’d see the likes of ya’ll ‘round here again!” Glen exclaimed.

Glen hooked jumper cables to my truck until it was running. I dropped off RJ, pulled into my parents’ garage, and quietly slipped through the back door.

The next morning when I got out of the shower, Mom and Dad were standing in the doorway with their arms crossed and stern expressions.

“So you come home just to drive around drunk and get yourself stranded in the middle of the night, huh? That’s your idea being thankful for the parents who gave you everything?!” Dad hissed with sarcastic rage.

Apparently Police Office Glen ran into my dad at the hardware store earlier that morning and jokingly commented about saving his daughter outside that “scary” bar.  Gossip travels fast in a town like Arthur. My parents will never stop being overprotective. And this town will always smell like horse shit.