The difference between a good trip and a great one usually isn’t the destination – it’s how you experience it. Here’s how to get more out of your holiday.
We all know the feeling: you get home from a holiday with a camera roll full of photos… but it somehow all feels like a blur. Good news: with a few small habit changes, you can turn even the most familiar places into something memorable – helping you slow down, connect more deeply and actually remember your time away.
From low-effort rituals to slightly silly group projects, these ideas will help you get more out of your next holiday – without adding anything extra to your itinerary.
Learn phrases from locals
You should always know a few basics when you travel – ‘hello’, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are a given – but why stop there? One of the easiest ways to connect with a country is to let locals teach you their language, one phrase at a time.
Make it a habit to ask someone new each day – a café server, shop owner or taxi driver – and save each phrase in your Notes app, along with where you learned it and who taught you. Before long, you’ll have a collection of expressions that feel far more personal than anything from a phrasebook.
Already fluent? Ask locals to suggest something you should do the following day instead – an unexpected detour, guaranteed.
Read a book set where you’re going
There’s something seriously magical about reading a story that unfolds in the very place you’re standing. Ideally, choose your book before you leave – or pick one up once you arrive – and let fiction guide you through the streets, landmarks and inner lives of characters who call it home. The more specific the references, the better.
Suddenly, an unassuming park bench or laneway carries extra meaning, tied to scenes you’ve already imagined. It’s an immersive way to learn about a place’s history, culture and rhythms, and it turns downtime on planes, trains or beaches into part of the experience – rather than a break from it.
Make a junk journal
This is your permission slip to stop trying to document your holiday ‘nicely’. Junk journals are messy, personal and slightly chaotic – like scrapbooks, without the artistry.
They’re a place for all the ticket stubs you shoved into pockets, lolly wrappers you forgot to throw out, café receipts with the date circled, or a coin you couldn’t quite bring yourself to spend. Glue it all into a notebook, add a few scribbled notes or half-finished thoughts, and call it done.
The goal isn’t to impress anyone else – it’s to create something that makes you remember how it felt to be there. Years later, this will be the thing you pull off the shelf, not your perfectly curated camera roll.
Film a music video
Yes, it’s silly – that’s kind of the point. Making a holiday music video brings travel back to what it should be: fun. Bad dancing, missed lyrics and questionable camera angles are all part of the charm. It’s a shared project, a guaranteed laugh, and somehow ends up being the one thing everyone actually wants to watch when you get home. All you need to do is lean into the cringe.
Some of the best songs we’ve seen used? ABBA’s ‘Waterloo’, ‘Chelsea Dagger’ by The Fratelli’s and this remix of Drake’s ‘Nice For What’, but honestly Just pick something people know the words to.
Build a travel playlist
If you’ve ever heard a song and been instantly transported back to a specific moment, you already know the power of a travel playlist. Start one before you go, add to it as you travel (a pop song you hear in a cafe, a crooning local musician), and keep it on rotation the whole trip. Then, when you’re home and back in real life, hit play and watch the memories flood back.
Bonus tip: This also works with scent! Wear the same perfume each day, or pick one up while you’re away and use it for the whole trip. One song, one spritz, and suddenly you’re back there – no boarding pass required.
