Why get a snow globe or cheesy T-shirt on vacation when you can get a tattoo instead?

Forget all the kitschy travel mementos — the keychain keepsakes, snow globe souvenirs, commemorative tees or other tourist tchotchkes.Jetsetters are opting for a more permanent token from their trips: they’re getting inked, as “tattourism” is on the rise.

Data from Hostel World found that more than 40% of adult vacationers under the age of 35 got a tattoo while traveling — half of whom revealed they went abroad just to get some ink.California tattoo artist Rose Hardy previously told Conde Nast Traveler that around 70% of her clientele travel from other cities or even countries to get inked by her, while Oaxaca, Mexico, artist Dr.Lakra said half of his clients travel from abroad.Cristina Ferucci, 25, previously told The Wall Street Journal that she and her friends got matching tattoos to commemorate their trip to London last year that was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.“We needed something to signify and hold this moment together forever,” she told the Journal.

“It’s small, but it’s the best keepsake.”Meanwhile, Sean Flynn, a 36-year-old editor living in Jersey City, recently went to Barcelona for vacation, spontaneously getting a new tattoo during his travels.“What’s important is not what someone else thinks of my tattoos, but what I derive from them, the satisfaction and personal joy they bring me,” he told the Journal.“That’s better than any souvenir.”In New York City, hotels are cashing in on the body mod craze, opening up parlors in the lobby or inviting tattoo artists for residencies.Moxy Hotels recruited Jonathan “JonBoy” Valena to be a resident at the Times Square location back in 2019, and, most recently, the Untitled Hotel opened the city’s first permanent in-hotel tattoo studio, Unscripted Ink, where guests receive a complimentary drink at the rooftop bar with their ink.“It came from tattoos being the ultimate souvenir of a person’s travels,” Liv Novotny, the resident tattoo artist and co-founder o...