The Story of the Travel Book
In our home there is something we always do after a trip, we make a travel book together with my daughter.
From the beginning it wasn’t something with a grand purpose, just something to remember our family trips and I wanted her to practice skills such as using scissors, cutting paper, sticking stickers, and using glue. I thought this would help stimulate her development so she would become smarter.
Another reason was attachment. In daily life I was busy, and I didn’t have enough time to sit down and do something together with her. And even when I did, it was often the same repetitive, meaningless “unicorn magic power play”.
So I needed another way to build that attachment.
My daughter and I often traveled between Korea and our home in Canada. I also saw that when she returned from Korea, she talked about what she had done there and remembered it for a while but forgot it eventually. So I decided to make a travel book with her. I wanted to intentionally create a time where, even after the trip ended, we could sit together and make something. I wanted the travel experience not to end as something that simply passed by, but to last longer through talking and organizing it together.
That is how the travel book started from when she was around three years old, when she was becoming a “question mark murderer.”
At first, it was very simple.
We cut out brochures from the places we had visited, glued in tickets, and added stickers she liked. She probably didn’t deeply understand why we were doing it, but she liked the time she could sit next to me and talk while I was fully focused on her.
After two years, I began to notice that the travel book was slowly evolving.
My daughter started writing dates and place names. She also adds maps. She has started to understand that within Canada there are several provinces, and within those there are cities. As we talk about whether the place we visited is north or south of where we live, and which province it belongs to, she is naturally learning geography concepts.
What started as fine motor development has become language, geography, composition ability, and memory organization skills all growing together.
Over time, I noticed something else as well.
She started selecting only the photos she wanted and began deciding where things should be placed, she started composing the travel book pages herself. Her own perspective was developing.
During a trip, we once went to a waffle shop. She was doing coloring, and the employee kindly brought her not only coloring sheets but also several heart stickers. To me, they were just ordinary heart stickers that you could see anywhere. But when we returned home and started making the travel book, my daughter suddenly started looking for those stickers. It was late at night and time to hurry up, finish, shower, and go to bed, but she said she needed those stickers. I said she could just use other heart stickers, but she insisted while crying that she had to use those ones.
“Why do you have to use these heart stickers?” I asked.
She said, “This is special. It is a gift I received. They said I was pretty. This is special that I received while eating waffles with mom and dad.”
I was a little surprised at that moment.
To me they were just ordinary heart stickers, but to her they weren’t. To her, those stickers were not just simple objects, but something connected to a person who treated her kindly, the waffles she enjoyed eating, and the atmosphere she experienced.
As an adult when I plan trips I think about what she will learn there and what developmental experiences she will gain. But the child was remembering something completely different.
That is when I realized.
The real value of the travel book is not only in recording travel or develop fine motor skills. It’s a process of discovering what was important to her, what was special, and how she was looking at the world.
We often spend a lot of time teaching children the ‘right answers’, and of course learning correct answers is important. But if we lose our own perspective, we may end up seeing the world through someone else’s eyes rather than our own.
When looking at a waterfall, one child says, “It is beautiful.” Another child asks, “Isn’t the waterfall scared? Does it hurt when it hits the rocks?”
“Even so, it looks brave because it keeps falling without stopping.”
These questions and thoughts are neither right nor wrong. They’re the child’s own perspective. And I hope my daughter doesn’t lose her own perspective.
Schools can teach correct answers.
Society can teach standards.
But the ability to ask one’s own questions, discover one’s own meaning, and see the world through one’s own perspective cannot be created by someone else.
What parents can do is perhaps not only give correct answers but also protect the child’s way of seeing the world.
“Why do you think so?”
“So that’s how you felt.”
“That is an interesting thought.”
These kinds of words send a message to the child. Your thoughts are valuable. The way you see the world is important.
I started this activity purely out of anxiety about missing developmental stimulation needed for growth. But after two years, I realized that my daughter was creating her own world through her own perspective while doing this activity. It wasn’t something I’d intended nor something I had expected.
I began to think that any method of connecting is fine. It doesn’t have to be a travel book. Drawing is good, going for a walk, reading together. What matters isn’t the form of the activity, but the parent’s curiosity about how their child sees the world. And the attitude of not correcting the child’s answer, but listening to it and respecting it as it is.
Through that process, the child comes to learn their own perspective more deeply, and the parent comes to understand the child’s world a little better.
And that is one of the most precious gifts I want to give to my daughter.