10+ Travel Souvenir Ideas (That Aren’t T-Shirts or Mugs)

The best travel souvenirs are the ones that let you bring a little piece of the road back home and make you happy every time you see them. After 5+ years of road-tripping, we’ve figured out which keepsakes mean the most to us and which ones end up forgotten at the bottom of a drawer. This list is all about the good stuff: unique travel souvenir ideas (that aren’t T-shirts or mugs) to help your adventures live on long after the trip is over.

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1. Polaroid Cameras

This is one of our favorite souvenir ideas, especially for roadtrippers! Whether it’s a couples’ getaway, a weekend with friends, or a family vacation, a Polaroid camera makes every stop along the way feel more fun. There’s just something about holding an instant print in your hand that no digital photo can replicate.

We love the Fujifilm Instax Mini Camera for its easy-to-use design. It’s simple enough to pass around the car, and you’ll end up with a fun stack of prints by the end of the trip. For bigger prints and a more retro vibe, the Polaroid Now is another great pick.

The best part? These photos double as souvenirs while you’re still traveling. Clip them to your sun visor, tuck them into a travel journal, or save them to frame once you’re home.

💡 RTL Tip: Be sure to pack extra film! Once the photos start printing, everyone wants to get in on the fun. And if you’re headed somewhere beachy, this cute Polaroid album is perfect for storing instant sandy, sun-soaked memories.

2. Action Camera or Dash Cam

If a Polaroid gives you little snapshots, an action camera captures the whole adventure! From mountain switchbacks to river rafting, a GoPro HERO10 or Insta360 X3 lets you relive the trip like you’re right back there. Add a GoPro Stabilizer for smoother footage and you’ve got everything you need to turn your trip into a highlight reel.

We also love clipping a Rove Dash Cam to the dash during scenic drives. It creates instant road trip reels that double as souvenirs and make amazing trip montages later.

Not sure if you want a dash cam, action camera, or to just use your phone? Here’s how we break it down.

The dash cam is your “set it and forget it” buddy, always rolling while you focus on the drive. The GoPro is for when the adventure gets active, when you want to strap it to your kayak or helmet.

Then we love using our phone for all the in-between moments: coffees in cafés, sunsets at the campsite, or a goofy gas station selfie. We use all three for different reasons, but a dash cam is the easiest way to make sure the whole drive gets remembered.

3. Framed Route Map

One of the most meaningful travel souvenir ideas we’ve ever started is hanging framed maps of our road trips. Seeing the route on the wall turns our memories into art and instantly brings us back to each trip.

Etsy is full of creative options for this kind of souvenir, including custom route maps (like these and these), push pin maps, adventure maps, and photo map collages.

You can order a map of your exact trip, mark the stops, and even add dates or a favorite quote. For families, push-pin maps are a fun way to track travels over the years, while photo map collages make great gifts for couples or friends who road trip together.

💡 RTL Tip: It’s best to order your map soon after your trip while the memories are fresh. Plus it’s a great way to help combat any post-trip blues.

Our maps hanging on our wall!

4. Christmas Ornaments

This was one of my family’s traditions growing up and we all loved how decorating our Christmas tree turned into a trip down memory lane.

If you make a habit of picking up Christmas ornaments while you travel (or grabbing them once you’re back), each ornament can tell a story: the carved moose from Yellowstone, the Eiffel Tower from Paris, the ceramic lighthouse from Maine.

Picking up Christmas ornaments for each trip is one of the easiest souvenir traditions to start, and every holiday season, it’s so much fun to relive your adventures.

💡 RTL Tip: If you forget to grab one on the road, order from Etsy (tons of unique handmade options that tend to go beyond the typical tourist shop finds) or Amazon when you get home. You can find an ornament for just about any destination!

5. Postcards

Postcards are a classic for a reason. They’re light, cheap, and you can find them almost everywhere. But instead of tossing them in a drawer, keep them in a postcard album (like this one on Etsy or this one on Amazon) so your collection grows over time.

We love flipping through ours to see the places we’ve been. Unlike bulky souvenirs, postcards don’t take up extra space as you travel more. They’re some of the simplest, most inexpensive travel keepsakes you can collect, but when displayed in an album, they become a beautiful record of where you’ve been.

💡 RTL Tip: Mail one home to yourself from each destination! When you get back, you’ll not only have the postcard but also a handwritten note from “past you” living in the moment.

6. Mixtile Photo Frames

If postcards are small and simple, Mixtiles are how you go big. We’ve built a full “travel wall” at home using these stick-on photo tiles, and it feels like living inside our scrapbook.

This is hands-down one of our most favorite, jaw-dropping travel souvenir ideas! After every trip, we scroll back through our photos together and pick the ones that really capture the magic: the bison jam we’ll never forget, our dinner view overlooking Lake Louise, us standing on a glacier in Alaska. Then a week or so later, the photo tiles show up in the mail, and suddenly those memories are on our wall to enjoy forever.

The best part? We don’t stop with just one trip. Over time, our photo wall has become sort of like a living scrapbook, layering memories from different adventures until it feels like a gallery of everywhere we’ve been. Every time we add a new batch, it’s like reliving all the trips all over again. There’s a whole lot of “remember when…” and “oh my gosh, I forgot about that!” happening as we stick the new tiles on the wall.

Mixtiles are lightweight, easy to rearrange (no nails required), and surprisingly affordable for how much joy they bring. Plus, they solve the common “what to do with travel photos” dilemma by turning them into wall art instead of getting buried on your phone.

💡 RTL Tip: We’re also obsessed with our Frameo for this reason! The best photos make it on the photo wall, but everything else gets a spot on our digital photo album so we can relive the highlights, the now-funny lowlights, and everything in between.

7. Custom Directional Signs

This is such a fun and creative travel souvenir idea! Custom directional signs let you point to your favorite places and add the mileage or distance from home. You can personalize each arrow with destinations that matter to you, like a national park you loved, a beach you visit every summer, or even the cabin you can’t wait to go back to.

We love souvenirs that double as home decor, and this is another great example. They make your space feel personal and full of memories, and each arrow becomes a little reminder of somewhere you’ve been.

RTL Tip: These also make great gifts for friends or family who love to travel. Order a few arrows at once, and you can keep adding new destinations over time.

Shop directional sign souvenirs on Etsy here, here, and here. Love the idea, but don’t have space for individual signs? Consider a watercolor print like this instead. A great way to highlight specific destinations on a road trip!

8. Keepsake Box

Not everything fits neatly into a frame and that’s where a keepsake box comes in handy, like this one or this one.

Tickets, brochures, wristbands, patches… throw them all in one place and you’ve got a time capsule of your adventures over the years!

We use one keepsake box for travel, another for wedding memories, even one for old school years. You can find stylish options on Amazon, Etsy, or even a local craft store like Hobby Lobby.

💡 RTL Tip: Pick a sturdy box that can handle being opened and closed often. Ours lives on a shelf in the closet, ready whenever we want to sort through our memories.

9. Travel Stickers

We wish we had started this tradition when we first hit the road in 2019! Collecting stickers from destinations and slapping them on your laptop, water bottle, or RV is a fun (and affordable) way to track your journey.

You can grab stickers at visitor centers, park gift shops, or online from places like Etsy or Redbubble. They’re simple, cheap, and every time you open your laptop or grab your water bottle, you’ll get a little reminder of how far you’ve come.

💡 RTL Tip: If you’re worried about commitment, put the stickers on a hard-shell laptop case instead. You can always swap the case later.

10. National Park Maps

Another one of our favorite souvenirs is also a free souvenir idea: collecting the paper maps or park guides you get at the entrances to national and state parks (and many other places, too). We save all of ours and keep them in a drawer at home. It’s like a library of the specific places we’ve explored and activities we’ve done!

You can do the same with excursions, trail maps, or even restaurant menus if they’re special to your trip. It’s amazing how these little pieces of paper can end up meaning so much because of where and what they represent.

💡 RTL Tip: Write the date on the back before you toss it in your keepsake box or drawer.

Whether you’re wondering what to do with travel photos or looking for creative ideas on how to display travel memories, these unique souvenir ideas turn every trip into something you’ll treasure long after the drive is over.

Happy travels!

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