Experiences or things? What matters more? I know the answer

When you look back a few years, you often can’t even remember what things you bought. But you can easily recall the trips and places you visited, something that surprised you, or an ordinary moment you shared with someone. And that’s exactly how it is for me too.

Experiences and memories mean more to me than things. Of course, I appreciate everything we have. But when I look back, I much more often recall the places my husband and I visited, our trips, and the little moments we shared together.

It’s similar with the memories of my mum. When I think of her, it’s not things that come to mind, but mainly the moments we shared. Where we used to go together, what we laughed about, or what we did together. It’s exactly these ordinary moments that stay with me the most today. 🤍

A beautiful memory doesn’t need an expensive holiday

When people talk about travelling, they might picture big holidays and long journeys. But that’s really not how it is for me. A few days in the mountains can be just as much a lovely memory as a single day trip close to home. Sometimes it’s enough to hop in the car, drive a few dozen kilometres, walk around a town we haven’t seen before, discover something interesting, have something tasty along the way, and head back home in the evening.

And yet it can turn into a day I’ll still remember years from now. For instance, our trip to the High Tatras this year was a beautiful experience for me, because I really love the mountains. But I just as fondly remember much smaller trips where we didn’t actually go far at all. Like our recent trip to Polná. 🚗

Sometimes I think people look for interesting places too far away, when it might be enough to drive just a short way from home.

Memories from our trips — whether to the mountains or just around the corner.

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I’m grateful for every trip we take together

When I think back over all our journeys, I realise just how grateful I am for them. And of course I’m grateful to my husband too. I don’t have a driving licence, so whenever we travel by car, he’s the one driving all our trips.

Sometimes the drive is short, other times he spends several hours behind the wheel. Meanwhile, I get to look out the window, watch the scenery, or check my phone for places we could stop along the way. Of course, I keep an eye on the road too and pay attention to where we’re going and what’s happening around us.

When I think about how many kilometres he’s already driven for our trips together, I really appreciate it and I’m grateful to him for it. Without him, I might never have seen so many of the places I write about here on Lenna Stories.

Not every trip has to be perfect

Of course, not every trip goes exactly according to plan. Sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate. Other times we arrive somewhere and it’s not quite what we imagined. Sometimes we’re tired, we don’t manage to see everything, or we realise we should have planned the trip a little differently. And sometimes something just goes wrong.

Yet when you look back on a trip like that with some distance, you often find that it’s exactly these little things that become part of the whole memory. We don’t just remember the monument, the view, or the square we saw. We also remember the journey. What we had to eat along the way. Where we stopped unplanned. What surprised us. What made us laugh. Or some tiny detail that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone else at all.

And maybe that’s what I love most about trips. Not just the places themselves, but everything that happens around them.

Even ordinary moments on our travels have their own charm.

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Why I take so many photos on our trips

Anyone who’s been reading Lenna Stories for a while probably knows I take a lot of photos on our trips. 🙂

I use the photos in blog posts, of course, but for me they have an even more important value. They’re memories. After a few years, all it takes is opening an old folder of photos, and suddenly you start recalling things you’d almost forgotten. What the weather was like. Where we stopped. What we ate that day. What surprised us. Or maybe a completely ordinary moment that never made it into any article. And sometimes just a single photo can bring the whole day back.

One day we might travel much less

Every now and then another thought crosses my mind. One day my husband and I will be old. Maybe we won’t be able to travel as much anymore, maybe we won’t feel like going so far, and maybe we’ll really just be sitting at home in our slippers. 🙂

And that’s exactly when we’ll look through all those photos. We’ll reminisce about our trips and maybe we’ll say to each other, “Remember when we were here?”

And I hope that some of the photos will bring back all those little things around them too. What happened to us there, what we talked about along the way, or what made us laugh back then. Maybe that’s exactly why it makes sense to me to collect experiences now. Not so we have the longest possible list of places visited. But so that one day we’ll have something to remember.

We don’t have to be travelling all the time

None of this means I need to be constantly going somewhere, though. As I wrote in one of my earlier posts, judging by the blog it might sometimes seem like we’re always on the road. In reality, we also have long stretches when we don’t go anywhere at all. And actually, that suits me just fine.

Maybe it’s exactly because of that that I can appreciate each trip more. If we were away all the time, they might eventually stop feeling special to me.

Memories don’t only come from travelling, of course

We don’t have to create experiences and memories only while travelling. It can be a perfectly ordinary evening together, a trip to the cinema, a concert, a hockey match, or anything else we enjoy doing together. Sometimes moments like these stay in our memory just as strongly as a big trip. I don’t think it matters that much where you are, but rather who you spend that time with and what you experience together. Travelling is just one of the things that helps us create shared memories.

Memories are made off the road too — at the cinema, a concert, or even in an aquarium.

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We often don’t bring the nicest things home with us

We might bring back a souvenir from a trip, something tasty, or some small item. But I think the most important thing we take away is inside us anyway. The memory of the place we were in. Of the person we were there with. Of something we saw and experienced together.

And the older I get, the more I realise that this is exactly what means the most to me.

When I look back one day, I probably won’t be counting the things we had. I’ll be remembering instead where we went together, what we saw, what made us laugh, and what we experienced together. That’s why I’m grateful for every one of our trips. The bigger ones and the completely ordinary ones. The places hundreds of kilometres away and the ones almost around the corner.

And above all, for the person I get to create all these memories with. 🙂

So, how is it for you? When you look back a few years, do you remember the things you bought, or the experiences and moments you shared with someone?