Travel Collectables: Fridge Magnets From Around the World, For My Mum

It’s time for another instalment of travel collectables. I write about things I pick up and collect on my travels, before I’ve written about t-shirts, banknotes, country patches, beer labels etc. But it’s time for me to move over…my Mum’s Fridge Magnet collection!

It was a few years ago while in Ljubljana in Slovenia that I bought my Mum a fridge magnet. That was 2008. Slowly but surely, I decided that to keep things consistent and rather than bombard her with random gifts, I’d simply buy her a fridge magnet from everywhere I went. So that way she gets the same present from all these random world locations I jaunt to. For the first few years though, I was travelling light and didn’t even buy gifts for myself. But in the last 2-3 years I’ve caught up and I now make sure I buy her a fridge magnet from every country at least, and within each country at least a few places, if they are worthy of a place on my Mum’s fridge!

I haven’t been back to Northern Ireland much recently – twice in the last 3 years, but I always somehow have a load of fridge magnets in my backpack ready to give my Mum.

Over the years, I’ve been to a load of touristy and also untouristy spots and one consistent souvenir they all have is a fridge magnet, as well as postcards.

So my way to showing my Mum the places I have been and for her to enjoy my journeys is now to present her with a magnet and tell her what that place was like, where I bought it and show her some photos.

I hope to fill my Mum’s fridge completely with these. I believe everyone that travels, and whose parents don’t travel as much, you should make an effort to buy your family or parents at least one souvenir from each spot. A fridge magnet is a small, consistent, pictorial and inexpensive reminder of my journeys and I love going “fridge magnet shopping for my Mum”!

Here are some fridge magnets my Mum has:

– Harbour at Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
– North Korean flag from Kaesong
– Lijiang Old Town, China
– Papik Tatik from Nagorno Karabakh
– Lake Bled, Slovenia

A few travel tips about fridge magnets for you:

– Shop around before buying
– Bargain the price down (you almost always can)
– Avoid buying them in airports (unless, as has happened to me sometimes, I forgot to buy a fridge magnet from that place)
– If you see one you like, it’s possible you won’t see that exact one again, BUY IT so sometimes you have to buy on impulse
– Carry them in hand luggage if you can
– Keep them away from laptops, hard drives etc. – it’s not recommended to have magnets near these types of electronics

As I backpack my way through South and Central America the next few months, I aim to build my Mum’s fridge magnet collection even more. Even better, in less than 4 weeks I’ll be meeting my Mum and Dad in Brazil on my travels!

So…

I’ll fill her fridge with magnets…

Then I’ll move onto her freezer…