Tourist trappings: why we all love a tacky souvenir fridge magnet

“Circumstantial evidence suggests that there is still an interest in having personalised ‘cabinets of curiosities’ at home that can be shown to members of the family, as well as guests, serving as stores of memory and topics for discussion.”

“a token of adventure”

“Food is a locus of authenticity now,” Lethbridge says, “One of the really big differences about tourism of the past 30 years has been the emphasis on food.” Victorian, Edwardian and even midcentury tourists rarely mentioned edibles. Today, we’re “much more interested in food than cathedrals”.

Lethbridge says that objets trouvés – found objects such as pebbles picked from the beach – can be powerful mementoes. But there is a certain honesty, she adds, in buying something from a souvenir shop. “The tourist in search of authentic will balk at the keyring or the novelty T-shirt,” Lethbridge says, “but the purer tourist – the tourist who kno... See more

If worries about authenticity are age-old, so is snobbery. In 1877, domestic expert Mrs Florence Caddy published Household Organisation, in which she suggested that travellers buy household objects and display them artfully – a quaint wooden pail from Antwerp, perhaps. Lethbridge notes that, “As in all things, the choice of souvenir was a marker of... See more

“It’s proof, isn’t it? It’s proof of your adventure,”