Do you buy souvenirs when you travel?

I have a doll from Belgium making lace! Maybe it made the apron of your doll? I think my father bought it for me as I've never been to Belgium. For some reason the viking doll sounds all wrong. Vikings are supposed to run around with bad swords, high on mushroom. Dolls are cute and fluffy. Cute and fluffy vikings, who'd be afraid of them? :-)

OK this wasn't actually a "doll" so much as a figurine. He's carved from wood, has a red beard, and a wooden sword. Doesn't look terribly ferocious though.

Maybe he has drunken too much mead instead of eating funny mushrooms.

I do a little of that too LOL

Shotglasses seem to be popular on mylot :-) No one has mentioned bringing anything back to fill the glasses with though ...

Yeah. Taking pictures is so enjoyable when you travel. I do it often times. And it will also save you more money while you enjoy. ;-)

That's also a good idea! Keychains are small, lot of different ones available, and if you want to show them off you can put them on some board all of them together. I take lot of pictures too, all the time, all over the place. Even at airports *he he* My friends don't really understand that I go out to take pictures when they go shopping.

I agree, that does sound like a wonderful idea! I have heard about other people who do this too!

This is one thing that really annoys me about souvenirs. There are so many that are not made in the country in which you are visiting. I also don't need trinkets and baubles.I like to travel lightly and not be weighed down. i have a recurring bad dream, in fact about having to pack masses of stuff I don't even WANT minimalist here! I might pick up a Tshirt, if its made in the place where I'm travelling. it is practical and can be used right away, Here is an example, the PEI dirt shirt. It is produced by dying the white shirt with Island soil. It really comes out a pinky, orange colour that doesn't come out easily http://www.squidoo.com/Prince-Edward-Island-My-Beautiful-Home take a look at the picture of the fox - the soil really IS that red and makes an amazing dye

That soil is really red! Wow. Not sure I'd got a shirt (but they probably look quite amazing) but I would have been taking pictures of it :-) I sometimes travel very light and buy tshirts and other clothes I need while I travel. So the only thing I bought the one time I was in Bangkok was underwear! My friend only bought socks, so we didn't really impress anyone with our shopping *he he*

Or Sweden! Last time I was in Finland we checked where all the stuff was made, and nearly all of it came from Sweden. They make a lot of things, then stamp them either Norway, Sweden or Finland and send it out into the world. Most of the stuff was really ugly though, just as well that we're not responsible for making it ourselves ...

If the souvenirs bring back memories for you, then they do what they are supposed to do :-) I've got some souvenirs that I want to keep for that very reason, but many of them don't mean anything to me anymore :-/ Now I prefer pictures, lot of pictures.

it depends for a person how they value things they buy if some are worthless ok it depends upon you it's your expense

I've kind of made of my mind to start getting the worse postcard I find in every place :-) Not sure what I'd do with them, make fun of them online maybe. Or make a collage that goes with my fridge magnets, I have some very touristy ones. In most places there's a bit of both though, both the good and the bad. There's a few in Vienna I try to copy evertime I'm there. Not really succesful yet, but it's getting better. In Innsbruck we didn't manage to find any nice postcards, and it's a really pretty city. They were so bad we were quite fascinated.

I've got a friend in Vienna (really a friend of my mother, so he's about 70). His place is filled with things from his travels, and he seems to be able to find nice things everywhere and display them to their advantage. He has been all over the world, so he has things from all continents. I don't think I'll ever manage to do that, I'm doing things a bit more minimalistic. I sometimes buy a new elephant for my elephant collection, but only if I find a really special one. I bet I would have found a nice one in Kenya :-)

At some point when I get rich and famous and has a slightly bigger flat, I'll get a glass cabinet for the stuff I want to display so I don't have to dust them. Now I've only put most of them away as I hate dusting :-) Not sure anyone like dusting though, at least I've never met anyone who did.

That's a very good idea! Maybe I should start collecting CDs instead of elephants. I love music, I think I might try that next trip. As next trip is to Vienna, finding CDs won't be a problem :-) There's CD shops all over town, and local musicians on every corner.

For the most part, I don't spend a whole lot on souvenirs. I'd much rather spend my money on more things to do while traveling-more museums or day trips or something. I second that very much. I browse postcards to get some tips for picture I can take myself :-) I have a double decker bus somewhere, I got it when I was in London for the first time. I've got a plan for playing with it with my god-child at some point.

I've got some very cheesy magnets, I often get some when my friends come to visit and I have a really touristy one from London. It's so touristy it's kind of nice :-)

Yes, magnets are good. The wife can't knock them down and break them while dusting!

I know the feeling, there seems to be someone that produces lot of the same thing and put different logos on them. I know I saw the same "souvenirs" in Skara Brae on Orkney as they had in Bangkok, which is quite weird. Pictures will always be unique to the place they're taken :-)

You could have got a shotglass with a moose on! I'm pretty sure they have a lot of them. Actually, we have a lot of them here *he he* They had moose handbags in different sizes. Luckily they didn't have any moose caps in my size, so I didn't have to try them :-)

Shirt and teaspoons seem to be popular among the mylotters :-) Logical really, you can use both, none of them are too expensieve and they're easy to fit in your suitcase :-) Happy travels !

My mother went travelling with some friends one, and one of them bought so much chocolate she had to buy a new suitcase too!

I think that even if I have the money for it, it's lots of weird, expensieve souvenirs out there that I just don't get :-) I like buying gifts too. You get something that you can't get at home, and for me it's usually cheaper. I don't really have much of a clue about accesoiries, so I haven't bought a lot of them.

But if you only sleep, how to do get anywhere? ;-)

Books are good. Especially if you're somewhere where you understand the languag, I always buy books when I'm in Britain or Germany/Austria. Both touristy books and normal fiction. I think I'd like to buy cooking books in India, I love Indian food but I've never tried to cook something. A bit difficult to find the right ingredients here in Norway maybe, but trying would be nice.

Actually, I hate shopping! I like window shopping, and buying books *he he* But sending postcards is a very nice habbit, and it's so nice to get a real postcard instead of just reading the facebook updates. I try to send some postcards every time I travel, 'cause I think it's so nice to get one myself. Especially children when they're small, when they get a postcard that's sent to them and not to their parents.