Almost every National Park reminds patrons to “Take only photographs, leave only footprints.” We are sticklers for following this guidance through most of the park. The park gift shops are the exception. I’m not a shopper by nature, but the allure of the unique finds in places we may never visited again is quite the temptation. When we started our trip, we had to curb our initial urge to buy the normal vacation haul of souvenirs due to limitations of space in the RV. If we bought a t shirt and mug at ever park, our drawers and cabinets would quickly overflow and we’d add unnecessary weight to our already heavy fifth wheel.
Souvenir Checklist
During our time on the road, we’ve developed a souvenir checklist, all light and all relatively small. The general haul includes park stickers, magnets, flattened pennies, post cards and Christmas ornaments. This does not include the junior ranger badges the girls earn by completing the junior ranger programs. A few national parks also give the kids a free patch in addition to the badges, which unfortunately has added one more item to our shopping list.
The magnets serve as a daily reminder on our fridge of our adventures. The girls enjoy rearranging them and quizzing each other on the different locations we’ve visited. (And occasionally fighting over magnet placement). Our fridge does not look tidy, but it certainly is fun. My favorite magnets are from the retro ranger collection, with stylized park posters and park information on the back of the magnet. We are about 4 months from running out of fridge real estate and will have to find alternate placement options.
Postcard overload
We purchased postcards for the girls to document their adventures and practice writing. Each girl gets one post card to send and one to keep. R sends her cards to her former third grade class in Hawaii. At the beginning of our trip I got suckered into the girls asking for “just one extra” postcard which they ensured me would go to a certain relative or would document something unique they learned. We quickly fell behind in documenting our adventures. After I began to find cards all over the rig we quickly went back to our two-postcard standard.
Memories as decorations
By far my favorite souvenirs are the Christmas ornaments (and they tend to be the most expensive, for those limiting spending). Decorating the tree and reliving the memories of different ornaments has always been a favorite of the girls. While we don’t have the space for a tree, we do have Christmas garland adorning the top of our slides which is the perfect spot for our collection. Our ornament souvenirs allow us to relive our road adventures.
Looking back on the strangeness of 2020, it’s easy to focus on what we’ve missed. Sheltering in place took us off the road for over five months and limited the places and friends we could visit. Pulling out the ornaments we’ve collected over the year reinforces just how blessed we are and how many things we were able to do this year despite 2020 craziness.
When we finally park our rig and move back into a sticks and bricks house these ornaments will remind us of our amazing extended road trip across this beautiful country. I hope this Christmas seasons allows you to time to reflect not only on what we have lost, but also on the highlights of the year.
Budget note: We generally spend between thirty to sixty dollars at the parks we visit on our souvenirs. Despite their small size, these souvenirs add up quickly. For most parks, our lifetime National Parks pass allows us free entry, but we always make up for it at the gift shop!