The humble disposable camera, that plastic point-and-shoot you'd grab at a chemist before a holiday in the late '80s, is quietly having a second life. What was once a budget workaround for people who couldn't justify a proper film camera has become a deliberate choice — and travellers are leading the revival.
The numbers tell the story. Fuji launched the first disposable, the 35mm Quicksnap, back in 1987 for around $10, and the format took off fast — within a decade you could get versions with flashes, telephoto lenses and even waterproof bodies. Then smartphones came along and should have killed them off entirely. Instead, Kodak's film sales doubled between 2014 and 2019, manufacturers started debuting new 35mm models again, and as of 2025 the disposable camera market is worth more than $1 billion, driven largely by Gen Z. They've shown up on the Oscars red carpet and on Urban Outfitters shelves — hardly the usual haunts of analogue photography.
So why would anyone trade 12-megapixel phone photos for a grainy, overexposed 27-shot plastic camera? Partly nostalgia and aesthetics — retail analyst Neil Saunders described the results as having something "a bit raw" about them — but mostly it's about the ritual. You shoot your roll, hand it in for developing, and wait weeks. What comes back is a surprise, and that delayed gratification has become part of the appeal rather than a bug.
For travellers specifically, the format solves problems phones create. A disposable costs around $20, fits in a pocket, comes preloaded with a battery that never needs charging, and won't ruin your trip if it gets soaked or dropped. Fuji's waterproof Quicksnap works for whitewater rafting; a Kodak Funsaver clips to a climbing harness without the heart-stopping risk of losing a $1,500 device over a cliff edge.
The bigger shift, though, is mental. Twenty-seven frames forces you to be selective. Instead of documenting every meal and viewpoint through a screen, you weigh each shot — and put the camera away for everything else. A social media account called Life On Film captured this beautifully: the creator hands disposable cameras to strangers at airports, asks them to fill the roll during their trip and mail it back, then develops the film into short slideshows. The results are often thoughtful little photo essays rather than endless camera-roll dumps — friends, lovers, landscapes, curated by constraint.
That's the real case for packing one on your next trip: it pushes you to actually be present. You freeze the handful of moments that matter and simply live the rest. For anyone feeling a bit numb after years of shooting everything for Instagram, a $20 plastic camera might be the cheapest mindfulness tool in travel.
Original source: Explore.com
