Friends are the best souvenirs I used to have a very bad habit of buying very stupid souvenirs when I traveled — Anklets that didn’t translate outside of the Caribbean Islands; clothes that didn’t make sense in any climate I was regularly in; objects that only looked good in their natural habitat and not in my own.
So, I started taking more photos and only buying things to which I could answer affirmatively to the question, “Will this translate to my real life?” But recently I went on a Celebrity Cruise with my wife, and we met another couple who we ended up spending a lot of time with.
When we got back and told our friends about meeting them, our friend Ashley reflected, “New friends are the best souvenirs.” I was really struck by that.