A book by a local author.
I used to buy a tee shirt (often at Walgreens) with the local high school/mascot on it. I kind of gave up on that later and we started collecting fridge magnets. I thought they were compact etc. but we quickly covered the camper’s vent hood (the surface of the fridge itself being plastic). So we brought them home, put on the fridge and…ran out of room there, too.
My ex-wife had a teddy bear that wore a sweatshirt and sat on the bedroom dresser. Every time we went someplace, on vacation, she would buy a little pin, like a lapel pin, stating the name of the place, or something else that identified where the pin came from. When we got home, she would attach the pin to the bear’s sweatshirt.
We split up and she left, but the bear stayed. I kept buying little pins for the bear when I went places. I may get a few other things when I’m away, but I always get a pin. And the bear’s sweatshirt is now covered in pins.
Squished pennies are the best. For 51 cents (the penny to be squished and the 50 cent fee) you have a cheap, tiny souvenir. I have a little booklet filled with them. I’ve never traveled outside the US, so i don’t know if there’s anything similar in places where pennies don’t exist anymore…
Also hiking staff badges, if such things exist in the touristy place we’re visiting.
Ball caps. I don’t even wear them anymore, but it’s kind of just become a thing after a few trips where we bought a cap wherever we were when on vacation. Mostly they just sit on the rear window shelf of my car 2 at a time until the constant sun exposure ruins the color, then they get retired and replaced with 2 more from the pile.
Every time I go to Europe I bring back Euro coins in every denomination, from every Euro country. Might that someday include Ukraine?
T-shirts for me, mugs for my wife.
I like keychain charms. At this point, the charms on my keychain outnumber the actual keys by about four-to-one and my keychain weighs several pounds.
Tee-shirts, plush and magnets. My banana slug from Muir Woods was a huge hit here at work.
If I see nicer stuff I like - a mola in Panama, a nice painting of the Louisiana bayou - I’ll get that, too.
The best souvenir I ever got for a co-worker was a David statute keychain from Florence. My co-worker, when I was showing her the variety of souvenirs I’d gotten for work “I want the little naked man!!”
I remember that scene! 
I might buy a tee-shirt but that’s about it. Mostly I just take some select pictures for my scrapbook. My book has 1 highlights page for every place we’ve been (been to all 50 states and 2 territories plus over 30 countries). And that’s the only souvenir we need. I don’t consider other things that I can’t get at home (like certain foods, clothing, or liquor) actual souvenirs. To me a “souvenir” is a token object to spark a memory. So if I bring back some whiskey from Ireland I don’t call that a souvenir.
We absolutely will not buy stuff for other people. You want something from there, go yourself. It got obnoxious. Every time my wife and I were going to travel people would give us lists for shit they wanted. Neighbors, people at work I hardly knew, whomever. We’re going on vacation not a fucking shopping trip for you!! When we decided on a policy of not getting anything for anyone people got shitty with us. A woman that works on a different shift who I barely know insisted that I was selfish for not bringing her some wine from Italy. What gall!
Only $6.50 on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Cincinnati-Ohio-Sunburst-Fridge-Magnet/dp/B01MYDCO3O
I collect some items. A 12-oz beer glass, just one. I have about 9 of them and they stack nicely and don’t take up much room in the cabinet. When one breaks, I’ll get another one on an upcoming trip.
Patches or stickers, like they used to put on car windows or on the back of an RV. I have a rooftop space case and I put them there but on the inside, not the outside.
From baseball stadiums I get a baseball that has either the stadium name on it or the team logo. That baseball goes into a display case. I’ve been to 29 of the 30 stadiums and am only missing the Atlanta Braves (circled in this pic).
Magnets for us, recent ones on the fridge and two boards (so far) on the basement stairs for older ones.
We sometimes would get a smashed penny when the kids were still traveling with us. Across the street from Ford’s Theater, at the house where Lincoln died, you can turn one metal image of Lincoln into a different metal image of Lincoln.
I do the coffee cup/mug thing, too, but mine are all shelved, on display. I use an insulated travel mug for daily use.
As a kid, I used to collect keychains. I was so excited to grow up and get a car and try out all my keychains in rotation. I had fun with it for a bit in high school and college, but eventually settled on a nice bottle opener from the Guinness brewery that I bought my sophomore year of college. It takes up very little space and comes in handy all the time. At one point the Guinness logo fell off and broke, and I lost a piece of it. I thought maybe this was the time to replace it, but in all my collection there was nothing else I liked as much. I glued the remaining piece back on and have kept using it. My collection is apparently complete.
I have a similar bracelet with charms plus a number of unattached charms, but I stopped collecting when I was in my 20s. I rarely wear it, because I’m concerned I’ll lose one of the charms
I started buying things that I could use, especially for the kitchen.
- Wooden sugar spoon made of myrtle wood (Oregon)
- Salt mill and pepper grinder we bought at Harrod’s
- Soap dish from Coimbra
- Small plate (holds the olive oil carafe) from Florence
- Ceramic tray from Cologne (holds the salt and pepper)
- Bench scraper from E.Dehillerin [used it today]
- Kitchen towel from the National Museum in Edinburgh [currently hanging up]
- Glass-topped wine cork from Venice
- Manual coffee grinder (for display only)
- Kitchen balance (for display only)
- Springerle molds from Switzerland and Germany
- A spurtle from Scotland
- Clock from Switzerland (bought before we moved here)
- Beer mat and glasses from Islay
- Plus the typical mugs and espresso cups from Starbucks
Polo shirts. Just one per overseas trip. I generally pick up a cool looking one from a favourite destination on the trip - it’s usually a sport team one so it has a cool looking badge that requires some explanation.
The best one I have though, is the one my son got for me from Bali - he knew I liked polos that had a flavour of the place where they were bought, so he got me a (very good quality) polo from Bali with a crocodile motif - and the word ‘Lacost’ misspelled exactly like that.
Pins and stickers for the camper.
Never heard of those. On my leather jacket, I have a couple AMA pins. I secured them with a blob of solder on the pointy end. Never lost one!
I like things that I can use, or art work from a local artist. Years ago, I bought these architectural drawings from an architect in Kyiv. They were of some of the cities beautiful old buildings and they’re drawn in that crisp drawing style that architects have. They’re in my dining room and I almost cry every time I look at them these days.