Confession: I keep the head of a marmot on my desk. (Well, to be totally honest, it’s most of the torso of a marmot and his head.)
But this isn’t the upper body of any old alpine rodent.
No, this little fella is sporting lederhosen adorned with edelweiss and a traditional green alpine hat. When I first met him, he was living on the counter of a supermarket in Austria, so I thought it was only right to buy him, bring him back with me and give him a proper home.
I should probably explain here that he only goes about an inch high and is made of ceramic.
These days, instead of packs of gum, he lives next to a water bottle from legendary Swiss hostel Balmer’s Herberge, a miniature Oktoberfest stein and a notebook stuffed with ticket stubs, business cards & stickers accumulated over years of traveling. On the other side of the wall from his new home is a refrigerator covered with colorful travel magnets, a couple of coffee mugs from Tokyo and a pottery butter dish from Poland.
And you know what? Most of the time when I look over at that marmot or any of the other souvenirs I’ve mentioned, a smile shows up on my face soon after accompanied by warm and fuzzy memories of places, people and the exhilarating feeling of travel.
And I know I’m not alone.
You may not have a marmot living with you, but I’ve got a feeling that you’ve got a few vacation trinkets scattered around your home—and I bet they’re pretty important to you.
Souvenirs. (Photo via Bumblee_Dee / iStock / Getty Images Plus)
Well, I say long live the souvenir!
The Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts. The black & white Old West family portraits where everybody's wearing costumes. The shot glasses. The bumper stickers. The wristbands from the resort that you didn't take off for weeks after coming home. The keychains. The caricature portraits. The goofy photo of you and your partner sticking your heads through cut-outs so it looks like your faces are on the bodies of Paul Bunyan & Babe the Blue Ox. The Paris print.
I’m here for all of it, and oftentimes, the cheesier the souvenir is, the more dear to your heart it becomes later on. I've found this is especially true when it comes to novelty photos at tourist attractions. Sure they're overpriced, but you never—and I mean never—regret having one to look back on and laugh about after the trip.
Souvenirs sure change through the years though, don’t they?
For many of us, what starts out as stuffed animals from theme parks and novelty toys graduates to airbrushed souvenir t-shirts before giving way to plastic neon drinking vessels and new outfits. Then, before we know it, we're shopping for art to hang on the walls, ceramics and ornaments for the tree.
We may change over the years as people, but we seemingly always find something to bring home from our travels.
While some would certainly be cynical and say that the appeal of souvenirs is just the result of a confluence of consumerism and humble-bragging, I like to keep a more romantic view.
Maybe, just maybe, the trip never really ends as long as the souvenir is still with us.
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