Summer is the season of movement. As many of us travel, whether across countries or just to the next neighborhood, I’d like to offer a different way to mark the journey: not with photos or souvenirs, but with scent.
For years, I’ve made it a habit to map a place by its smells. This practice has changed how I travel. It slows me down. It sharpens my attention. And later, when memory fades, recalling scents brings everything back with astonishing clarity. I only have to imagine the honeyed aroma of orange blossoms to transport myself to Marrakesh. This memory then pulls on another one, and I delve into the fragrances of sun-warmed clay in a small oasis town, stone-roasted bread, and effervescent Moroccan cumin. In my mind, I travel again, going further and further.
Scent is the most ephemeral souvenir, but also the most faithful. Here’s how to begin building your own olfactory map.
Arrive With Your Nose Open
The moment you step off a train or out of an airport, breathe deeply. What do you notice first? Is it heat rising from the pavement? Eucalyptus trees? Engine fumes? Even if the smells of humanity in a crowded place may not be the ultimate moments to bottle, they are unique and memorable. Notice it all. Often, the air carries a “first impression,” the base note of a place.
Try this simple exercise: Close your eyes for one minute and do nothing but smell. Jot down a phrase or word: “petrol and seaweed,” “hot concrete,” “laundry detergent and cigarette smoke.”
Follow the Markets
Markets are treasure chests for scent mapping. In Odesa, I once smelled tomatoes so ripe and fragrant that I felt intoxicated. In Delhi’s Chandni Chowk, I followed my nose until I came to the Shah Jahan-era market full of sacks of chilies and marigolds.
Walk through a market slowly. Smell with curiosity, not judgment. What’s being sold? What’s cooking? What’s rotting? Most big markets also have spaces for cooked food, so it’s a great way to try local specialties and hone one’s olfactory skills.
Eat with Your Nose First
Discovering new foods is one of the pleasures of traveling. Before you eat, smell deeply. How does that peach smell? Does the local bread differ from what you eat at home? What spices are used? What herbs? What smells linger on your fingers after a meal?
Visit a Religious or Ritual Space
Churches, temples, cemeteries, shrines have specific smells: wax, dust, rosewater, incense, stone. In Poltava, I lit a candle in a dark church where my grandmother was baptized and inhaled beeswax and faded lilacs. In Brussels, I smell old wooden pews and white Madonna lilies. I enter each space wondering what scents cling to offerings. This sensory aspect lends another dimension to the experience.
Notice the Unexpected
One of my strongest scent memories from a recent visit to Paris wasn’t from a perfume boutique. It was from a laundromat that exhaled such a deep waft of white musk that I stopped in my tracks. In Sumy, a Ukrainian town on the border with Russia, it was the smell of Marc-Antoine Barrois’ Ganymede inside a bomb shelter turned art studio. Mixed with the scents of oil paint and chalk, it acquired a different impression for me. I also urge you to notice smells that clash or startle you. Memory often anchors to the strange.
Keep a Scent Journal
Write down one scent per day. You can include more, but one will suffice. Mention the place and your impressions. You need not write an essay, but a sentence of description will encapsulate the impression and preserve such scented memories longer.
Also, writing down observations teaches your senses to become more acute. You learn to notice more details in your environment and absorb them. The scent diary technique is what I teach to my perfumery and literature students. It’s an easy and effective way to hone your memory and attention span.
Examples from my recent scent diary:
May 27, Lviv – burned chocolate, coffee, cigarette smoke, rose petals sold at the market (for jam). Sweet and bitter. Contrasted.
July 26, Brussels – strawberries, a frites stand at the market that smelled of rancid oil, damp soil in the park. Japanese incense that smelled like star anise and sandalwood, almost Indian.
If you’re a perfume student, these short entries become part of your olfactory sketches and vignettes.
Gather Invisible Souvenirs
You don’t need to buy anything. But if you do, consider buying soap, spices, tea, or oils. Even dried herbs can evoke the trip long after you’re home. Once at home, keep them in small jars or boxes, as your portable museum of scents. Indian spice boxes, which have separate closed compartments, are perfect for this task.
Final Thought: To Smell Is to Belong
Scent mapping is not just about memory. It’s about being present. It’s a way to belong to a place, even for a moment. And later, when you no longer remember where you stored the photos or which year exactly you made the trip, it’s scent that will carry you back.
So wherever you go this summer, take your nose with you. Listen to it. Let scent become your most enduring souvenir.
What scents are shaping your summer? I’d love to read your entries from your own scent maps.
Photography by Bois de Jasmin
25 Comments
Milena: I can imagine combining these scent maps with photographs or journal entries. Each scene marked by both image and aroma. It’s a practice I’m inspired to try in my own neighborhood. Thanks, Victoria! July 28, 2025 at 8:25am
Victoria: Milena, I’m so glad this resonated with you! That combination—image and aroma—makes for such a rich memory archive. July 28, 2025 at 9:20am
Ann: What a great article! It reminded me of how the olfactory bulb connects directly to memory and emotion. You don’t just visit a place. You feel it, and you carry those impressions with you long afterward. July 28, 2025 at 8:48am
Victoria: Thank you so much, Ann. Yes—exactly that. Scent imprints itself so deeply because of how it bypasses logic and goes straight to the emotional core. July 28, 2025 at 9:20am
Diana: Hello, I just returned from a trip to England, where I studied at Oxford, briefly, and in that course was at the Bodlein library to examine medieval manuscripts. In a room of about a dozen of these glorious books laid before us, I asked the curator if I could smell the book. A little bit odd but to take in the scent opened a world of exploration right back to the 13th century how could I not? So I leaned down carefully, avoiding banging the manuscript with my badge and breathed in deeply. I did that with every single one of the books and they all smell the same. Spicy. Like a hot cross bun at Easter. How glorious. Whether it was the scent of a recent location or the original scent of place back in the day I don’t know, but I’d like to think it was the latter I’m so glad I asked and so glad I took a deep sniff. It was transporting i know you understand.
Thank you for your consistently excellent writing regarding scent and perfume and the art of awareness. Much appreciated by me! July 28, 2025 at 9:34am
Victoria: I can just picture you, leaning over those illuminated manuscripts, inhaling centuries of mystery and ink and parchment. Thank you for sharing this vivid moment. July 30, 2025 at 8:35am
Hamamelis: Since finding Bois de Jasmin many years ago my nose leads the way, wherever I go. Your questions will help to make the scent impressions more conscious. Thank you for your evocative examples.
We just spent 10 days on the Breton coast, where the smells of mussels, seaweed on the beach, boulangeries filled with fresh baguettes and croissants, crêpes, diesel engines from the fishing boats and above all the everpresent Atlantic lift the spirit. My husband bought a travel spray of Epices Marine, it fits this smellscape so perfectly! July 28, 2025 at 9:41am
Victoria: What a beautiful “smellscape” you describe. The Breton coast comes alive through your words. July 30, 2025 at 8:34am
Kelly Willow MacNeil: Really needed this today … a reminder to slow down and smell the proverbial roses. Thank you for such eloquent writing and encouragement to start my own scent diary to add to my daily journaling. God Bless. July 28, 2025 at 10:15am
Victoria: I’m so glad this piece arrived at the right moment for you. A scent diary adds another layer to journaling—it holds traces of the intangible. July 30, 2025 at 8:34am
Pat Torelli: I love the idea of gathering scent memories and being present in the moment. Next week I go to a favorite place and hope to gather many invisible souvenirs. Thank you for a beautiful article, Victoria. July 28, 2025 at 10:30am
Victoria: Wishing you a deeply sensory trip next week, full of impressions you’ll carry long after you return. July 30, 2025 at 8:34am
Krista: This was so wonderful! Excited to try it on my next vacation. Thank you for writing! July 28, 2025 at 12:59pm
Victoria: Thank you, Krista! I hope your next vacation is filled with scent-moments that surprise and anchor you. It really does shift how we travel. July 30, 2025 at 8:33am
Donna: This is sumptuous to read , Victoria. And timely, for I’m about to travel to Romania, including the Carpathians. Anticipating many new scent impressions ahead of me.
“To smell is to belong”..oh yes! And reminds me of this sentiment portrayed through the character Grenouille in Suskind’s book! July 28, 2025 at 1:35pm
Victoria: Romania and the Carpathians! What a rich scent canvas awaits. July 30, 2025 at 8:33am
Karen A: Beautiful writing and very inspiring! I remember landing in southern Türkiye when the orange trees were flowering, oh my my! Windows down driving on roads bordered on both sides, intoxicating! July 28, 2025 at 1:37pm
Victoria: That image of blooming orange trees in Türkiye is pure poetry. July 30, 2025 at 8:33am
MaureenC: What a wonderful piece. I’ve bookmarked it because I know I shall want to come back and reread it several times. What a fantastic mindfulness exercise this is.
I was thinking about the location finding app ‘what three words’ which I assume exists beyond the UK. Perhaps we could make a ‘what three smells’ note to remind us of a location? July 29, 2025 at 3:04am
Victoria: I love that idea. A sensory locator, more intimate and enduring than coordinates. Thank you for reading and for this wonderful suggestion. July 30, 2025 at 8:32am
Kim: Loved this. I’ve been doing something similar while blending perfumes and traveling scent really does hold memory in a unique way. I share a lot of this approach through my work at aromaverse.pro, where I create and explore fragrances tied to moments and places. July 30, 2025 at 3:01am
Victoria: I’m so glad this resonated with your practice. Thank you for letting me know. July 30, 2025 at 8:32am
Aurora: Such an elegant cat. I’ll follow your tips when I travel to Drôme Provençale in September as I do every year. It smells of pine and wild thyme and is so distinctive. I need to buy an Indian spice box. July 30, 2025 at 7:55am
Victoria: I look forward to your scent diary! July 30, 2025 at 8:31am
iolanda: Even if I don’t write that much in the chat (my English is so bad!), I always read you with a great interest and curiosity! This article is so profound, engaging and also poetic. I’ve a great travel planned; for the first time I will across the ocean and change continent, I will follow all your tips, because this is how I see travel. I usually do that but this time I’ll find the way to write it down on my note-book. Thank you so much July 30, 2025 at 4:27pm