Jillian’s May Post: Traveling Anywhere this Summer? Enjoy the Pleasures of Processing

"For me, there are three stages of the trip," Lucia, a financial planner I interviewed for Change Your Life Through Travel, said. "There’s planning the trip, taking the trip, and processing the trip. That is, creating the story and scrapbook afterward. So the end, the scrapbook, even influences the pictures I take on the trip. And as I take pictures, something usually jumps out as a theme. I start to collect anything that’s graphically interesting, representative. On a recent trip to France, it was wine; and what bubbled up around that was corkscrews. I took lots of photographs of them, bought every postcard I could find on them, and we ended collecting a bunch of antique corkscrews from different flea markets. I also keep a journal on the trip -- more bullet points," she said. "And I’ll make a list of the 'Top Ten': Things I'd do again; things I'd never do again, and funny things that happened," Lucia said. She concluded about her processes, "Any time you do something more consciously it enhances your experience. It just puts you into the mode of observing more carefully."

What will make your Top Ten list this summer?

For more ideas about processing your journeys and turning them into simple, inexpensive gift ideas see "Kindle the Spirit of Travel, and Life" in Change Your Life Through Travel.