If you’ve spent much time on the road, you’ve probably noticed how often mugs seem to follow you home. They’re in national park visitor centers, small-town gift shops, roadside museums, and just about everywhere RVers tend to stop. Sturdy, practical, and easy to justify, a mug can feel like a reasonable souvenir—something you’ll actually use.
Maybe you buy a mug at each national park you visit. Those are the best!
As you travel, one trip turns into two, then three, and before long your RV cabinet—or your kitchen at home—tells a quiet story of where you’ve been. Each one brings back a place, a season, or a specific morning when coffee tasted better because of where you were parked. Ah, that beautiful sunrise among the red rocks…
Then there are the quirky gift shop mugs. The ones with odd sayings, slightly offbeat designs, or a town name you’d never expected to visit. Maybe you have an alien-head-shaped mug from Roswell, or a lobstah claw mug from Maine.
Of course, not everyone is a mug buyer. Some RVers are short on storage, trying to keep weight down, or simply don’t want one more thing rattling around while driving. Photos, postcards, or memories themselves feel like enough.
So what about you? When you’re traveling and spot a mug that represents where you’ve been—especially one from a national park or a quirky little gift shop—do you bring it home? Take the poll and let us know how you remember the places you visit.
MORE POLLS YOU MIGHT LIKE:
- Do you collect refrigerator magnets when you travel?
- Out of these options, which is your favorite type of cuisine?
- How often do you take a nap?
- Do you wave to fellow RVers on the road?
- Do you prefer campgrounds with lots of amenities or quiet, rustic sites?
RVDT2807
I only use my RVT coffee mug (as shown above), which I love the design and the grip. PLEASE bring it back and available! I’d love to gift them to friends!
Mugs are heavy. Being weight conscious I don’t need the extra weight in my rig.
Tough to store more than personal needs.
No
Absolutely not. When I retired from the military and state service I had over 50 coffee mugs and have parted with 40 or more. Then cleared out all the mugs that were gifts, holiday mugs, or I thought this was a “cute” mug you’d like. All off to recycle. Oh the cupboard room I recovered.
No, because they take up space and I try not to add anything breakable to the rig.
Buy shot glasses instead!
That’s what I do. She still gets mugs lol.
Very, very rarely. If we do find an interesting or unusual one, it ends up in our sticks and bricks.
But we do buy refrigerator magnets at places we visit. Some are in the trailer but most end up at home. Some of these are actually tiny works of art.
My wife tells people the more magnets on the fridge door, the less she has to clean it!
Thank you for the question, RV Travel! My answer is “never.” It once was “always.” It changed when we moved and were paring our possessions ahead of packing. The number of mugs was embarrassingly large and I swore off the routine of acquiring more as a reminder of a visit or trip. Have a great day and safe travels!
We don’t buy any souvenirs except meals and memories. We have collected so much junk over our life time, I feel sorry for the son who has to clean up the mess when we pass on.
We used to buy mugs but quit after we had mugs everywhere. We gave most of them to Goodwill keeping just a few that were special. We then switched to pins and now we have an album filled with pins and postcards.
I did until I realized that my entire cabinet in the RV was as full of souvenir mugs as the one at home. So now we do specifically seek out Deneen mugs (a family-owned company in Minnesota who crafted the mugs for our B&B) but, other than that, we have had to become more selective.
We collect magnets, tokens and pennys, but mugs are too much like collecting rocks- as in long long honeymoon. By the way, RV Travel, what is going to happen with the park penny squishers after penny’s are no longer available?
We have enough pennies to last the rest of our lives. We’ve been putting them in a 5 gallon water bottle for about 20 years. It’s about 1/3 full now.
Heck, they may be worth enough to buy a new trailer soon!
We used to collect interesting mugs from national parks. However, we seldom use them, preferring no-spill thermal cups. Due to lack of space we now just buy refrigerator magnets.