In October of 2017, at 37 years old, I set out for the longest traveling experience of my life. It began in Hong Kong and continued to Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.

When I returned, I took the time to create a travel book as a token of the great memories and beautiful places that I visited. I had shared many of the photos online but something about printing a hardback book makes it feel more dignified. The book is a favorite physical memento from the trip.

I collected 76 photos to include on 30 pages, and did my best to write descriptions about the places, things and people in the photos. Six of the images – one from each country (example above) – are featured prominently printed across two facing pages. Every country proved to be photogenic in its own way.

Printing the book cost $35. There are a number of online businesses that make it easy to create the photo book by using stylish pre-designed templates.

Most of the images were taken by my Nikon D7200 DSLR. Sprinkled in are a handful from a GoPro 6 and an iPhone. The GoPro is useful because you can export individual jpeg frames from the video files, so anything you catch on video you also can use as a photo. A great example of GoPro’s usefulness as a travel camera is how I was able to include photos of black tip reef sharks in the photo book thanks to the GoPro’s underwater ability.

While the GoPro is a great camera to travel with, it’s definitely worth noting how much newer smart phones are catching up with their capabilities. The new iPhone X can record at 1080 resolution at 240 frames per second. That matches the new GoPro 6. The iPhone also performs better filming in low light situations.

Anyways, discussions on the best photo equipment to travel with aside, the important part is that your travel photos are there for you to enjoy in the future.