Words: Emma Herrod Bason (she/her)
And without me, what I have accumulated will return to the miscellaneous, only now they shall be misplaced. Perhaps, we do not need to take at all, who you are is souvenir enough.
Souvenirs not only mark our physical journeys, but emotional.
In the age of “self-discovery” travel, I have moved past collecting the generic tat of snow globes and magnets that gather dust under my bed, in search of tokens that will commemorate not where I’ve been, but who. My memory box, stuffed full of shells, rocks, tickets, and bottle caps, is a priceless patchwork of my experiences. Yet this fascination with ownership, fear of forgetting, and entitlement to the world has consequences. In our endless pursuit to evidence our lives, are we aware of the harmful trails that we leave behind?
As travel has become more widespread, awareness of the problematic effects of mass production and consumption of souvenirs has grown. Instead, people are taking items from nature or items that would otherwise be binned. There is an illusion of abundance that satisfies people’s desire to minimise their impact on the environment and the communities they visit, as this act feels inconsequential. At the same time, this shift reflects people’s desire for individuality. In an age of mass consumption, generic souvenirs fail to capture the complexity and personal experience of travel. There is novelty and elitism in owning what another cannot, as it is not only the items themselves that are unique but also the nostalgic value we attribute to them. These objects echo significant moments, cultures, and versions of ourselves that have shaped us, which become immortalised in our ownership. By collecting these non-replicable objects, an uncommercialised identity becomes constructed through one’s travels.
Yet the Earth’s resources are not limitless. The collection of shells is stripping habitats essential for marine protection, disrupting ecosystems that depend on the cycle of shell decay, and creating an imbalance in biodiversity. This is such a pressing concern that some countries, like Sardinia, have introduced fines of ‘up to €3,000 for removing sand or shells from its beaches.’ In taking pieces of the natural world, what seems like a single inconsequential act becomes detrimental when multiplied by the millions. These items’ purposes are not constructed once we attribute meaning and ownership to them. Their purpose lies in their natural environment.
This is a mindset held by the Anangu people in Australia – who not only respect but worship their indigenous land – including the half-billion-year-old sandstone monolith, Uluru. This is the dwelling of their ancestors’ spirits, with the rock’s patterns encapsulating their histories, customs, and beliefs. For the Anangu people, to truly admire a landscape is to leave it untouched. For years, tourists have taken pieces of Uluru as a keepsake, destroying microhabitats within the rock formation and enacting deep cultural insensitivity to the Anangu people. We must consider all cultural implications when collecting souvenirs, and learn from this perspective in order to rethink our relationship with the earth. This relation is not one of abundance, inconsequence, and transaction, but one of observation.
Whilst Australia has the infrastructure to listen to the campaigns of the Anangu people to make taking rocks illegal, not all countries have the economic stability to place restrictions on the environmental and cultural problems caused by trinket collection and broader tourists’ actions. Their reliance on tourism coerces their cultures and lands to become consumable, and combating environmental suffering becomes secondary. As we accumulate cultures, with “local” bottle tops or cigarette boxes pocketed, we risk buying into a system that is oversimplifying complex cultures to create the commodified “native” experience that we crave. A culture cannot be summed up in an individual narrative or collected into a simplistic aesthetic. By removing items from their context, we risk overinflating our understanding and alignment with cultures around the world and forgetting that just because they may rely on and encourage tourism, this does not mean actions don’t have attrition.
I am aware that this issue does not have a certain solution. So instead, I have interrogated my need to document my life at all. In the age of social media, experience feels incomplete unless evidenced. If it is not captured, did it happen? But if what we seek is self-growth and learning, it will not be found in something you can hold, but in something you have understood. What is genuinely ours is not the object, but our interpretation. My stories, memories, friends, music, and feelings are not in these tokens, they are commemorated within me. And without me, what I have accumulated will return to the miscellaneous, only now they shall be misplaced. Perhaps, we do not need to take at all, who you are is souvenir enough.
