Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02724944 Copyright Elsevier Ltd. DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.02.011This paper examines the issues emanating from the transition into a new social and cultural environment distant from the home, the context of which is provided by the transition from home to university. The study analyses the transitional process over a period of five months, using data obtained from in-depth semi-structured interviews and participant observation of ten first-year undergraduates who moved to study at the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham. It explores the mediating variables that impact place attachment and place identity during the transition from home to university. Within this context consideration is given to how participants made sense of changes in their socio-spatial environment, the ensuing problems and challenges of doing so, and how these meanings affected self-perceptions and self-evaluations. The analysis demonstrates how participant???s stories of the transition evince an abiding concern with the loss of place, manifest in terms of an erosion of a sense of belonging, attachment and continuity and an undermining of home???s capacity to symbolise the self. The implications of such accounts for our understanding of place attachment and identity are then explored. The paper concludes by advocating a holistic approach to our conceptualisation of place, given that place meanings are constantly being evaluated and redefined in light of changing social and physical relationships with place and between people and place

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Personal technologies are widely used to capture the memorable and meaningful experiences travellers have during their journeys. These digital footprints serve as memorabilia for travellers to share and reminiscence about these special experiences. This study showcases an exploratory study of the creation of a travel diary from the traveller's digital footprints to facilitate the expression of and reminiscences about memorable and meaningful moments. In this study, 15 participants were asked to share their memorable and meaningful travel experiences and were then instructed to use their photos and a set of prototyping tools to create a paper-based visual diary of their experiences. The goal of this study was to examine the process of creating a visual diary to understand the differences in how these experiences are recounted and the ways they are expressed. We used a Labovian approach to compare and contrast the participants' oral narratives and visual diaries. As in comics studies, the visual diaries are analysed with respect to their spatio-temporal dimensions and the recurring patterns in these two narrative forms are discussed. Based on the results, recommendations are made regarding the future design of travel diary platforms.

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