Travel Journals?

[lassarina]

Hello journaling friends! I have been bullet journaling for several years and I think I might like to take up travel journaling, but in addition to what I can find on the wide Interwebs, I thought I'd consult the community knowledge base!

Do you travel journal? During a trip or after? What do you consider essential? Other thoughts? (I barely even know what I'm asking, I just keep seeing the term and ordered a beautiful new notebook I have no plans for, so....might as well!)

Thanks in advance ♥

Comments

[moomintroll]

I travel journal! It's something I do after my trips as it would take up too much time out of my actual travels, and it's a nice way to go back and remember it afterwards. I usually write quick notes to myself on my phone while I'm traveling so I don't forget stuff and can capture how I was feeling in that moment, and then I'll go through these notes when I'm actually journaling and make it more coherent.

I also consider it vital to collect ephemera when I'm traveling - tickets, museum maps, a paper napkin printed with the restaurant logo, etc. It gives me things to stick in alongside my writing and helps bring the page to life. Nothing is trash when you travel journal!

I also have a portable printer (HP Sprocket) which I use to print out photos to add to my pages. It makes all photos a uniform business card size, so it doesn't take up too much space on the page and looks cohesive.

[lassarina]

....omg, business-card-sized photos are brilliant. I wonder if I could build an 8x10 sheet that I could have printed at local photo processor and cut with scissors....hmmmmmm.

I actually have piles of ephemera I've collected from prior trips that I've never done anything with and maybe I can do something with those as well.

Thank you!

[octahedrite]

I used to do this -- would stick tickets into it and write about anything particularly memorable. I did it during trips. Essential is to write down cool/funny/touching moments -- especially things you wouldn't discover/encounter without physically travelling there.

[lassarina]

Oh, that's a good point! The things you can't find on Wikipedia or maps. Thank you!

[althea_valara]

*waves*!

Pretty sure this was before we "met" each other, but I went to Detroit to see Dear Friends when I missed the concert here. I brought at AlphaSmart along (it was before I had a smartphone... man, that was a while ago, wasn't it?) and did lots of typing on it. The entries are here: https://xnera.dreamwidth.org/tag/detroit

I'm glad I did it because there are things I would have forgotten about the trip if I hadn't. In my case, I was traveling alone so it was easy to find the time to write (the train trip helped!). These days, I'm not sure if I would bring pen/paper or just use my tablet/phone or what have you. Probably the latter. Have fun with your travel journal, and safe travels!

[lassarina]

Oh, wow, AlphaSmart, I hadn't heard about those in a minute. I'm usually pretty good about typing up stuff for DW, but I am feeling the urge to a. use all my pretty supplies and b. have something tangible in addition to the text dump. This trip can be an experiment!

[lassarina]

Yeah, I don't like teeny tiny notebooks because I feel very cramped when writing in them (and tend to have a death grip on my pen when I feel cramped, which means my hand starts to hurt after less than a sentence), so I'd have to somehow keep notes/maybe voice notes?/photos and assemble them at the end of the day.

I try to build my vacations so that I have time to decompress at the end of each day (because otherwise I will lose entire days to chronic migraines), so I might be able to get away with end-of-day writing? hmmm. I will have to experiment.

Thank you!

[lunabee34]

They make notebook systems called Travelers Notebooks that I think were originally designed for journaling while traveling although I don't think most people who use them now are using them while traveling. The original was made by Midori, but many places make them now. They are typically leather covers, and you put multiple smaller notes inside.

Here's a good article about them: https://www.wellappointeddesk.com/2022/10/a-deep-dive-into-elastic-planner-systems-aka-travelers-notebooks-fauxdori/

[lassarina]

Oh, that's really interesting! I have a notebook I was looking for an excuse to use (Notebook Therapy finally put their Winter Tsuki back in stock and I grabbed that within five minutes of geting the email, and wanted something interesting and fun to put in it) but I might consider a traveler's notebook for later, if I keep it up.

Thank you!

[lunabee34]

You're welcome! I'm glad it was useful. :)