Is there any country you visit without buying its local souvenirs back to home? I know it would be very nice of you to bring back gifts from your trip to friends and families, but that doesn’t mean gift is necessary when you have to sacrifice your own traveling schedule. You’re busy looking for souvenirs and not enjoying the travel itself.
A: We’re going to this place tonight
B: Argh! Me want to join, but I need to buy souvenirs for my colleagues, take the pictures for me ‘kay?
…….
That’s just stupid. Or maybe it is just me who doesn’t get it why people want to skip visiting a place they want to see for buying key chains or shirts for somebody else. I mean, you don’t often come to that place (maybe you wouldn’t come back again for the rest of your life), yet you let it go.
There is an advertisement of Washington State in one of Natural Geographic Traveler magazines: Come back with stories. Not refrigerator magnets. I think that’s a traveler should do.