Grocery stores are the best travel souvenir shops
A woman shops at a supermarket in Shinjuku district of Tokyo. Supermarkets are a place to learn how locals really eat, a metaphorical peek into the country's kitchen pantries. Credit: AFP via Getty Images/YUKI IWAMURA
No matter where I am traveling in the world, my suitcase always returns home with a few souvenirs. Yet I rarely browse around a gift shop and often leave a touristy craft market empty-handed. Instead, I've found some of my most treasured travel mementos come from an unlikely but everyday place: the shelves of local supermarkets.
On a recent visit to Tokyo, I brought back genmaicha (green tea with roasted rice) and tins of shichimi togarashi that briefly transports me back to Japan whenever I dust it over my udon noodles at home. I picked up sachets of Svanetian salt and khmeli suneli (a Georgian spice blend) in Tbilisi, and beautiful paper packets of Ethiopian Wush Wush tea at a grocery store in Addis Ababa.
I've picked up colorful boxes and bottles of cough drops, herbal balms and even mosquito coils from the pharmacy sections of supermarkets from Hong Kong to Vietnam. I won't actually use them for their intended purpose; their old-timey and intricately designed packages now brighten up the open shelves in my living room.
I use glass Coca-Cola bottles with labels in swirling Burmese and Arabic script (bought at corner shops in Yangon and Marrakesh, Morocco, respectively) as pop arty vases for single flowers. And when people compliment me on my favorite shirt, a short-sleeved batik number with kaleidoscopic patterns in blue and moss green, I'll respond with the same enthusiasm as a woman wearing a dress with pockets: "Thanks, I got it from a supermarket in Jakarta!"
I see foreign supermarkets as windows into a destination at its most authentic self. Free from the oft-Disneyfied veneer of popular sightseeing spots and "must-see" markets, and without the novelties that can often feel tropey and unrepresentative of the lived local culture.. It's a place to learn how locals really eat, a metaphorical peek into the country's kitchen pantries, candy jars and skin-care routines. When I buy a curry mixor exotically flavored toothpaste, it feels as if I'm taking a piece of that culture back home.
Supermarkets and grocery stores are usually found all over town and don't require venturing into tourist districts. Their opening hours often extend beyond the typical 10 to 6 of most regular trinket shops, and because they cater to the local community, their prices are far more reasonable.
When I browse a foreign supermarket, I look for products that tap into a country's collective nostalgia. It could be the Mysore Sandal Soap beloved by Indian moms and grandmothers, or the checkerboard-patterned tins of Simba Mbili curry powder that Kenyan families have been cooking with for generations. These classics aren't just the time-tested pick of the litter — they carry a place's soul in a way a kitschy souvenir trinket often can't.
So next time you're abroad, pop into a Spar, Carrefour or a simple corner shop. You might just find your next favorite keepsake.
