Taking note of the feelings you felt, the places you visited, and the things you experienced during your time abroad is something everyone naturally wants to do. It’s great to remember the importance of doing these things and to understand the various outlets of remembering your time abroad.
Make a blog
Creating a blog is something many people do during their time abroad. It allows them to process their feelings and experiences while simultaneously allows others to follow their journey. This is a great outlet if you would like to provide a combination of photos, texts, videos, etc. You can keep it personal for your eyes or select eyes only, or you can open it up to the public and allow others to live vicariously through you during your adventures. Like any form of documenting your experiences abroad, you can be as lenient or orderly as you wish with how often you post. In the end, you are making these posts for yourself, not for others.
Write in a journal
Having a journal can be a great outlet for someone who enjoys getting more creative. One of my best friends kept up with journaling her entire time abroad and ended up filling about three full Moleskins. Journaling allows you to get as crafty as you would like by handwriting your thoughts, gluing in photos and making cool borders and little side notes of the memories you had with them, drawings of the vibes a certain place gave you or of something you would like to remember in your own creative way, or simply just attaching bits of a map or pamphlet you found during your adventuring.
Take photos
This was personally my favorite way to remember my time abroad. I started a personal blog that I shared with others and didn’t maintain after the first month. Journaling wasn’t something I continuously kept up with either. Capturing the things I was seeing, small or big, is really what made me feel “complete” in remembering my thoughts, feelings, and experiences. I find it hard when people ask “So tell me about your trip!” or, “What was your favorite thing you saw/did abroad?”. More often than not, it’s hard to have a definite answer for those questions. Instead, I have been doing this thing with my friends where I give them my camera roll on my phone or even just my Instagram page, they pick a random photo, and I give them the most detailed story of explaining the context of that photo. Verbally describing who you were with, what you were wearing, where you were, why you were there, how you were feeling, what happened 10 minutes before or after the photo, etc. It’s a fun way to go about memories, and I’ve been doing this on my own as well since being home in the states.
I wouldn’t say all methods will work for everyone. You need to find what works for you. This may be choosing just one of these, a bit of all three, or something that I haven’t even thought of. The opportunities are endless, but be sure to document how this experience is hitting you as much as you can. Your future self will appreciate looking back and seeing the things you did, rereading your thoughts in those moments, and it’s just generally a very healthy outlet for someone when enduring such positive life-changing experiences.
