Collecting items from your travels is not uncommon. It is not unheard of to bring back something like a magnet, shot glasses, snow globes, stuffed animals, or anything else. I buy some of the items mentioned but I have another blog post on those items.

What many people may not collect is currency. That’s right, you read it, currency. It seems a little strange to bring back currency from your travels. But to me this isn’t something new. I started collecting money from other countries when I was about 6 years old! It was the first time my family went to Jamaica to visit my family over there. After our trip, I never cashed in the leftover money I had from Jamaica. I thought the money was so cool looking, and different from the boring green color of American money, that I decided to keep it! I kept one Jamaican dollar and a lot of coins as well! That is pretty much how my travel collection started.

Mind you, I’ve never been to Saudi Arabia so in my eyes these bills don’t count. I have to physically visit a place, collect their notes, and put it in my collection for it to be deemed “legitimate currency from MY travels”. But some people collect it even if they didn’t travel to that country and that’s fine too. Just a pet peeve of mine. My boyfriend’s step-mother went to Saudi Arabia and gave her left over money to me because she knew how much I loved collecting currency. But, I do want to go there one day so I’ll take this as an early travel collection.

Now, whenever I go to a new country I always collect their currency. It is such a cool, unique, and neat way to collect something cool and authentic from that country. It shows a very diverse and colorful picture of countries, and the images printed on them tell their long history and stories.

Thus far, I’ve collected currencies from Canada, Jamaica, the UK, and Europe. All the other currency in my collection were either given to me (because people know I collect currency and they give me their leftover notes) or I stumbled upon them (I’ve found a few coins from other countries on the ground in NYC).

These are the Euros I collected. They remind me of the times I’ve had in Germany, France, and Italy. I absolutely love the coloring of the Euros. My only regret is not keeping the €100 note.

Scotland’s notes are amazing! I love the blue color they have and it is so unique to them. I believe there was one note I wasn’t able to collect because it was never given to me throughout my many transactions in stores. Regardless, I love the ones I did manage to collect. These were the only ones I collected the same note, so to speak, for because each £5 note was different! I thought it was so cool so I made it my mission to collect all of them. They next time I go to Scotland I’ll collect the last blue £5 note!

Of course, if you follow my blog and read my posts, you’ll know that I am obsessed with England and my collection would not be complete without notes from here! I spent 3 months in London, the best 3 months of my life, and I collected their notes as a reminder of my love for the country and the great time I had over there!

Look at these cool ones from Canada! Aren’t they awesome!? The colors, the cool transparent slip on the right hand side, all if it is amazing! Let me tell you, it was a STRUGGLE to get these! In Canada, especially in the Niagara Falls area, most places accept American dollars and will give you American money in return.

I searched high and low, and even asked store staff if they could give me Canadian money, but they only gave me American dollars. I had to go to the casino near our hotel, go to the currency exchange area, and request Canadian notes and coins. Nevertheless, I was successful and managed to get these beauties!

This is money from the Philippines. My boyfriend’s step-mom is from the Philippines and she gave me this when she returned from her vacation. Like with the Saudi Arabia money I don’t count this money as legit because I didn’t travel there. But again, she knows I collect them so she gave it to me to add to my collection. I’d love to go to the Philippines!

This is the start of the coin section. I’ve collected coins from the UK, Europe, and Jamaica. They’re sort of hard to see from afar but I managed to collect every single coin value! Excuse the tape on the tops of the coins as if that portion is left open the coins will fall out. So I put tape on there to prevent them from falling out. Not the prettiest look but it works.

I highly recommend to everyone that they start a currency collection! If you have one, what have you collected?