1. Concoct a mission. One way to score great souvenirs is to devise a hobby-inspired crusade. Birding, animal-powered transport, religious services, festival hopping, tracking literary landmarks, learning a massage technique from the local healer or watching musical instrument makers at work. This strategy moves you past the other bumbling tourists who wait to be fleeced by the gratuity-crazed bevy of con artists who plague many destinations. Invent a quest and the souvenirs will find you. You'll save money too.

2. Set yourself apart from the pack by finding items that are not officially for sale. Some of the best stuff comes from places of work like factories, farms, markets and home-based manufacturing locales. Look for handmade tools, hunting paraphernalia, bamboo fish traps, etc. My fish trap from northern Thailand combines lobster-trap ingenuity and jungle art. It's one 18-inch section of mature bamboo aggrandized into a conical shell that houses a DNA-like bamboo stick helix. I knew the trap, tied to the outside of my backpack while I transited Bangkok, was a winner when scores of elders accosted me to admire the handiwork recalling their youth; it also invited perplexed stares on the subway ride home from Kennedy Airport.

3. Some ideas: handmade anything, boxes of local tea, government propoganda posters, belt buckles, unique foreign magazines, children's toys and books, matchboxes, coffee grinders, clothes you'll never wear but that are cool anyway (like authentic ponchos and massive yak-fur Tibetan jackets).

4. Be sensitive to "cultural rape." Make sure economically stressed people (esp. aboriginals) are parting with objects they can replace easily with your payment. Don't mistake politeness to your inquiries regarding an item they will miss as acceptance. Acquiring such gems necessitates culture-sensitive compromise; bargain with the correct individuals.

5. Buy your souvenirs using the ten-step rule. If the seller doesn't come down to the price you want, start walking away. Ninety percent of the time they'll call you back before you plant that tenth step. And in the end, remember, it's something special you're buying. No matter what it costs, it's usually still cheap anyway.

6. Shipping versus carrying home - the great debate. Sometimes, packages shipped from developing countries never make it to your home. The tactics for negotiating fragile or "oversize" souvenirs onto your homebound flight and through customs also requires diplomacy, and occasionally bribery. To avoid paying taxes, always declare souvenirs as gifts on Customs forms. Note: 30 seven-foot hunting spears do fit into a flight attendant's coat cabin.

7. Honor your gift purchase impulse on the road. An $8 Balinese woodcarving turns more heads than another T-shirt.

8. The story behind procuring travel souvenirs often outshines the actual artifact, and the odyssey of hauling it home usually inspires yet another tale. When toting my set of Irian Jayan highland hunting spears down 34th Street in New York, the routine push-and-bump pedestrian anarchy parted a clear path to allow uninterrupted passage. "Whatcha got there?"asked a concerned Manhattan policeman eyeing my seven-foot spears. I was only too happy to tell him.

Photo by Jeff Booth