UPDATE: NEW GIVEAWAY for March-April 2024! We’ve teamed up with Bob Books to offer one lucky reader a £50 voucher towards their own travel photo book. Scroll down to enter – giveaway ends 8th April 2024! There’s a 20% discount code too if you can’t wait to get started.
Why we love creating our own travel photo books
Photographs. Tens of thousands of them. A number that will only increase as Hubbie insists on expanding his already rather substantial camera collection (one that always travels with us in its entirety). He never leaves any of his cameras at home…’just in case’. I realised this was becoming a bit of a problem when I had to cut down on the amount of clean underwear I took on our trip to Kenya, to allow for the extra weight of all those cameras.
Spare pants or photos. One of the few things we disagree about!
On our recent trip to Sri Lanka we took over 4800 photographs in just 6 days, whilst in Kenya we came home with over 3100. I’m not even going to start counting all the gigabytes of film that Hubbie took. When we first started travelling, back in the day when we thought living in flip flops and washing every other day was perfectly acceptable, we carried around our 35mm film cameras. Our bags would be bulging with precious bundles of spare films, and we would try to make every photograph count, knowing once we’d used up our stock, that would be that. There weren’t many places to buy new film rolls in the depths of the Guatemalan jungle or the remote valleys of Peru.
Today is a different story. Digital cameras have solved this problem, and with hundreds of gigabytes of memory at our disposal we can snap away quite happily for hours. Yet this enthusiastic photography comes with its own problems. Namely the vast quantity of images that end up sitting forgotten on hard drives and cloud storage. That never happened with film.
One of exciting (and sometimes disappointing) aspects of 35mm film photography was getting the images developed, and finally seeing your travel snaps for the first time several weeks after returning home. It sort of prolonged that holiday feeling. Something to look forward to after you’d said goodbye to the sun and the sangria for another year.
I’ve always enjoyed surrounding myself with travel memories, and was never one to sling photographs into a desk drawer, to gather dust alongside that ancient pot of Tippex and a few perished elastic bands. I loved the ritual of selecting and arranging the pictures in an album, to be proudly displayed on our travel bookcase and promptly pulled out whenever an unsuspecting relative foolishly enquired about our holidays.
However this became completely impractical when we made the move to digital cameras. We took too many photos to have them all printed, and it was impossible to select just a few for a photo album. Plus by this time the albums were taking over our living room. And our loft. They were too big and bulky, and had started to look a little outdated. Yet I still wanted to display our images, and enjoy diving into an album now and then to remember the adventures we’ve had.
So I was thrilled when I discovered Bob Books several years ago.
About Bob Books
Bob Books is a unique online photo book design service that allows you to create personally customised photo books and printed products. It’s really easy to use, and you don’t require any design skills to be able to come up with something that looks sleek and professional. Phew! All you need is a computer, the Bob Books Designer software (which can be downloaded from their website – more on that below), and a pinch of creativity.
Bob Books photo books
The photo books come in several different formats, so if you’re creating a travel collection it’s a good idea to pick one style and stick to it. We always opt for the Portrait 21 x 28 cm because it fits nicely on our bookshelf and is easy to hold, but the books also come in larger sizes as well as landscape and even square.
Paper and finish options
Once you’ve chosen your style you need to decide what paper you prefer. We find the ‘classic’ is perfectly good for showing off photographs, although there are gloss, matt and photographic paper options too if you want something extra special. Then it’s on to the cover. For us, a hard cover is a no-brainer for a photo book, but if you need something a little more pliable, then paperback is available too.
Your final decision is whether to get a standard binding or a lay-flat binding. The latter is a great choice if you’re going for more of a coffee table style book or have large double-page images that would look best flat. We usually go for the standard binding, but find on the thicker books (when we’ve done a big trip with lots of photos) the double-page spreads don’t work as well.
To give you an idea of price, our portrait hardcover photo book starts at £32.99 for 26 pages. Extra pages can be added as required, at £2.50 for each additional 4 pages.
How to design your photo book with Bob Books
Once you’ve chosen your format, it’s time to get down to the fun part. The design. To start, you’ll need to download the Bob Designer Software, and then you’re good to go.
The first thing to do is select your design layout. You can used the pre-arranged layouts or create your own from scratch:
Then you need to find your photo folder using the handy panel on the left. You can then simply drag and drop your images onto the pages.
If you want to change the design as you go, there are templates for arranging the images on each page under the Page Layouts tab, with options for different numbers of photos, high or low coverage, and jaunty angles. You can also add text if you wish. If you have an eye for design, the image boxes can be edited and dragged to create your own layout.
Don’t forget to choose a background (it can be different for each page if you like) if you haven’t opted for full page photo coverage. I tend to go for black, because it looks slick and professional, but if you like a bit of fun, there are themed backgrounds such as ‘nature’, ‘holidays’ and ‘flowers’. There is clipart available too if you want to add something extra to your design.
Finally there are masks and frames to choose from if you want a particular image to stand out. I love the ‘countries’ mask, for obvious reasons.
Don’t forget to put a title on the spine, and be aware that if you want the spine to be a particular colour, you need to add a background first (as a double page spread behind any images you might use). After you have done that you can add the text.
Once you are happy with your design, simply save it, add it to the basket, upload your creation and wait for it to arrive in the post. It’s as easy as that!
Our design suggestions
- Try and keep your double pages symmetrical in layout, or have several images on one side with a single large one on the other. Like this…
- Throw in a few images that take up the entire double page spread to break up the pages crammed with lots of photos.
- Mix things up a bit, and don’t have every page looking the same.
- Clip art and funky frames are fun, but if you want a slick look, leave the frames alone and stick to a single colour background throughout.
Quality and Service
We’ve always been very happy with the service, and all our queries and problems have been responded to very quickly. We once received a book with a scratch on the front cover (that was South Africa 2009!), and when we contacted Bob Books they resolved the issue by sending us not one, but several copies to replace the damaged book.
Delivery usually takes 1-2 weeks in my experience, which isn’t bad considering each item is individually printed. The books come well packaged in thick cardboard with polystyrene corner protectors.
Tips
- If you want to save a bit of money, sign up to the Bob Books newsletter and wait for their discount codes to arrive in your inbox, sometimes offering 20% off!
- Bob Books have a Bookshop where you can share your creations with your friends and family, and even publish your books for others to purchase with a small mark up fee if you wish.
- There are also calendars, photocards and wall art available. We designed our first calendar this year, and love how we’re reminded each month of a particular place we’ve visited. This month it’s snorkelling in Brazil.
The 2024 Giveaway – £50 Bob Books Voucher
We’ve partnered with Bob Books to offer you the chance to win a £50 voucher to put towards your own photo book. This giveaway is open to UK residents only (due to postage restrictions).
The giveaway starts on Monday 25th March 2024 and ends at midnight on Monday 8th April 2024.
Bob Books have also kindly offered our readers a 20% discount on purchases – just use the code CONVERSANT20 at checkout. This code is valid until 30/6/24.
How to enter
Just use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter, completing as many of the options as you like.
Make sure you select your entries on the Rafflecopter widget to validate your entry!
Terms and Conditions
No purchase is necessary to enter or win. A purchase will not increase your chances of winning. The prize is provided by Bob Books, and is a £50 voucher valid for 1 year. The voucher is not valid in conjunction with any other offer. There will be one winner.
The prize is not refundable or exchangeable for cash, and no change will be given. This giveaway is open to entrants with a UK address. The giveaway will run for 2 weeks and end at midnight on Monday 8th April 2024. The winner will be determined on or around the 8th April 2024 by a random drawing of eligible entries received. Your chances of winning are determined by the number of eligible entries. Winner must respond within a week of receiving the notification email, otherwise another winner will be chosen.
Please check our Conversant Traveller Privacy Policy and also the Rafflecopter Privacy Policy for more information on how your data will be used and stored.
Bob Books kindly provided us with £50 towards our latest photo book for the purposes of this review, as well as a £50 voucher for the lucky winner of this giveaway. All opinions remain our own, and we only agree to review products that we’d be happy to pay for ourselves. We’ve been using Bob Books for a long time so our recommendation comes from years of personal experience.
The pictures from our next trip to Switzerland or the photos from our wedding a few weeks ago
All my Granddaughter amazing memories from her Internship to South Korea could go in here!
I would do a book of our trip to Paris this year and add some pics of Paris six years ago. A place that means a lot to me and the family.
For my son, after he has been to Glastonbury this summer
Our trip to Oman in September
my trip to southwold
This would be just perfect for my recent trip round Scotland
OMG this prize is meant for me! My teenage son is currently travelling around Europe and is due to return home early May. I had planned to buy him a photo album as a welcome home gift so he can print all of his favourite photos to remember his amazing journey. This would be so more professional and a lovely keepsake. Fingers crossed
I’d love to make a book of our cruise onboard the Queen Elizabeth – it was epic!!
Our trip to Ibiza!
my holiday with my family to turkey
A trip to beautiful Edinburgh!
I think I would probably make a photo book of the last few trips we’ve done so we can remember the best moments!
id use it for pics of when we went to germany
our recent trip to wales
my trip to Blackpool x
Our holiday to Crete!
Not sure….
I would use it for my holiday to Tenerife later in the year
id choose my trip to india
Next holiday, not decided where I’m going yet
I’m going to London for my daughters 21st it would make a nice keepsake of the memories
I have used Bob Books before and been very pleased with the photo books – I have lots more holiday snaps witing to be put into photo books.
My trip to Jamaica will be what I used for this lovely book.
No holidays planned yet as we are in the process of fostering our granddaughter, but lots of days out, so something from a special day out
I am going to Egypt this weekend so it would be great to get some photos printed in this book as a keepsake. It’s our first holiday out of Europe as a family so it is a big deal for all of us. So excited and can’t wait to capture some happy memories
We are going to Scotland later this year so that would be ideal for the photobook.
I will use it for my trip to India
We visited Bulgarai and had a wonderful holiday exploring
I would love to make a book of our travels there
I plan to spend my 40th in Spain, so it would be nice to commemorate that.
Great to do one of our grandson
The next holiday to Northumberland visiting the area around Hadrian’s wall
I have many family holidays I just don’t have physical pictures for! This would be perfect for my upcoming trip to Skiathos island in Greece, will remind me to take a lot of pictures to fill one of these books 🙂
Holiday to Greece
My upcoming trip to USA
I would love to use it for a family summer holiday
for photos of the family x
I would use it to keep family holiday photo’s in.
Would have photos of our family holiday to Rhodes
I did the New York / Las Vegas combo last year and would Love to make it in to a book !
Pictures of my children for my nan
wedding photos
I’d finally get some of my children’s baby pictures printed in a lovely book!
To keep all our memories of the places we take the little one
Our family travels 🙂
For our family pictures 🙂
My daughters first year
My best travelling photographs
As a scrap book of pictures for my wedding planning
My old family photos
collating all our family photos into one lovely book
Such a lovely idea. We were saying only last week that our photo albums take up too much room, these are a great alternative (and much more modern looking ha ha). We have Tanzania and Zanzibar coming up for our honeymoon (cant wait!!!) so it would be for that.
Now that’s what I call a honeymoon! Have a fabulous time (oh, and congrats!) 🙂
Our most recent walking holiday in Cumbria’s photos
Oooh, hope you had fun (we live up in Cumbria!), the Lakes certainly is a photogenic place!
I would use it for photos of my family we take when we have family days out
We are going on a trip to France soon and I’d use it to capture our memories x
For family pictures
Pictures of the children when they were younger ….or the granchildren ….or those wonderful trips to India, Mexico, Nepal, Canada etc. …..or my years as a Brownie leader …..or …the possibilities are endless!
Im having a little wedding next month, and its on a shoestring so i would be using it for my wedding, many thanks
Lovely idea, we did a photobook for our wedding too. Good luck, hope you have an amazing day!
We’re doing Route 66 this summer, so this would be lovely to show off all our photos from the trip. Can’t wait.
Family holiday to Florida
Love this idea! And absolutely love those country masks!! What a great idea! I took my niece to Italy for her 21st and one of these books would be a great keepsake for her!
The masks are fun aren’t they! 🙂
I would make one for all the photos I took while attending events during the London 2012 Olympics – got 12,000 to choose from!
Wow, now that’s a lot of photos! Pretty cool you went to the Olympics too 🙂
Family holiday to the Isle of Wight.
I would make a photo book of the photos from our upcoming summer holiday for my daughters 🙂
I would use the voucher for pictures of our holiday to Las Vegas and San Francisco last year, we loved it! and would be amazing to see the happy memories in a book
That sounds like an epic trip!
My niece is 4 in July so I think I would make a photo book for my sister (her mummy) of the first 4 years of her life in pictures. 🙂
What a lovely idea.
My holiday to Cornwall
pictures of my daughter growing up
My holiday to france
I would use this for pictures of my granddaughters