My first posting on This Mommy Gig, Road Trip, discussed the importance of family vacations. Today I’d like to focus on business trips.

When I was a stay-at-home mom, I fantasized about glamorous trips to exotic locales. Eating dinner in a restaurant and having someone else make the bed seemed like the height of sophisticated bliss to me. I had no experience with the realities of stressful meetings, packed schedules, travel delays, and loneliness for spouse and children.

The vagaries of life on the road are beyond my control. But I do have a few suggestions for staying connected with your children when you must travel without them.

While my mother kept the home fires burning, my father moved about the globe as an engineer for General Electric. He always returned to us with gifts, souvenirs of far-away places. Some of these presents were substantial: tea sets from Japan, Steiff puppets from Germany, carved wooden Pinocchios from Switzerland. More often, though, we received foreign coins or coasters in different languages. I realize now that when Dad didn’t have time to shop, ragtag mementos were tossed into his suitcase. We loved them all, though, and dreamed of the days when we too would have a wallet stuffed with pound notes and francs (now, alas, the ubiquitous Euro).

The lesson here for traveling Mommies is that the best souvenirs are not necessarily the ones purchased in Harrods. Children are intrigued by doorknob hangers and subway tokens. My daughter and I exchange seashells from trips; my son has quite the collection of bottle openers from various cities. Think of small, useful items. My 86-year-old mother proudly wears socks from Key West, California, and Grand Cayman, given to her by children on the move.

Everyday items gain fascination when they’re from another country or written in another language. I bought my younger brother a Mickey Mouse comic written in Greek when I visited Rhodes; the human interest stories in the London dailies provided hours of amusement for my children after I returned from a trip to the U.K.

Share your memories with your children. Use a jar, some sand, and seashells to construct a mini-seashore in a bottle. Create a real or virtual scrapbook with pictures of the places you’ve visited. Have the kids take pictures of what happened at home while you were away and compare their adventures with yours. Find some recipes online for the foods you’ve tasted and introduce them to the flavors of Maine or Mexico, Kiev or Key West.

If you do have time to shop, choose a book that is set in the place you’ve visited and read it, with embellishments, to your children. Expand their world by making them a part of what you’ve experienced.

When you’ve returned from a trip, what little gifts have meant the most to your children?