That sounds like a great vacation. I can see that every shot you took documented something that caught your attention. If an image didn't have immediate recognition when you returned, there's a good chance that there will be a discussion somewhere down the line when the subject will come up as a question in conversation. It's also possible if you have an inquisitive mind that you may have a question when reviewing an image that can be answered by looking at the images just before or just after. So from my perspective, I'd suggest keeping them all, even if you do so via some sort of offline method.

Now let me ask you this question...was this a three week vacation? If so, you averaged about 325 pictures per day. If you were out and about for ten and a half hours per day, that means you snapped an image just about every two minutes all day long. For me, that's a lot of snapping.

And by the way...don't discard those experiments that didn't work. If you really want to learn that new technique, you need to study and understand what went wrong. That's the only way you can figure out how to reliably make things go right next time. I'd create a folder with images that I captured while learning. Eventually when you have everything figured out, you can decide whether to delete the whole folder.

Having said all this, I do not take this many images when I go on vacation. I am on vacation to see, experience, and maybe learn a little bit. I want to remember having been to a place or to an event. That can't be accomplished while concentrating on a camera or watching everything through a viewfinder, whether it's optical or electronic. For me, 100 shots a day represents pretty intense shooting. A year ago I attended a railroad history convention in Kansas City. We did two days of extensive touring with many stops for exploration, including a half-day train ride. I took a total of 255 carefully selected exposures and kept 250 of them. A few of those were shot through bus windows and include reflections. They are keepers, too, because they record unique experiences that are unlikely ever to be duplicated, like underneath a large crane unloading containers from railcars. Another is from the very heart of the BNSF Railway's Argentine Yard. The reflections don't matter. They are actually part of the experience. There are some "artistic" exposures also, like the decorated ceilings in Kansas City Union Passenger Terminal or a parallel track speeding by from the window of the Southwest Chief.

I'm not telling you all this claiming to be a great photographer. Some of what I kept would be of little or no interest to almost anyone else. But it's of interest to me. And I'm pretty proud of it and will look at it again down the road.

I used to shoot events, mainly for non-profit organizations I belonged to. A 1-day event could yield 800 shots. A 3-day event might produce 1500. My keeper rate was generally around 10%.

But I kept them all. I have a color label system to tell me which are the ones I think are good. The rest are there for repair of problems that I find later and to provide full coverage of people who might not be in the best shots. The only ones that get deleted are the pure junk shots (but even then there could be some interesting abstracts with a little postprocessing).

I don't keep any of them on my main drive. They are all on an external drive. The internal drive is reserved for programs and essential data files.

If you want to do the housekeeping, back up everything first. Then you can go through and do triage. The backup will be there if you make a mistake and delete something you didn't plan to or hit the wrong button accidentally. I would also advise that you have sidecar files for all your shots. That way if you want to re-import an image, the edits will be there and you don't have to start over. Sidecar files are small enough that it won't impact your storage requirements significantly.