Photos usually end up forgotten on your phone. A journal is different: you actually pick it up again, and every page brings a memory back. We asked our community how they keep a travel journal.
Nele puts it like this: "What I remember is that little market with the good food, not the big monument." Those little things are exactly what you catch on paper.
You don't have to be an artist to start a travel journal. Here are ten tips from our community, from packing to coming home.
Preparing your travel journal
1. Choose the right notebook
An A6 slips into any bag. An A5 gives you more room to play. Match the size to the trip: a city trip only needs a small notebook. Expecting plenty of time to draw? Then go a bit bigger.
Love to paint? Go for blank or dotted paper that soaks up a bit of ink. As Liesje puts it: "Nothing so smooth that only a ballpoint will write on it."
2. Prep a few pages
A blank first page can be intimidating. Ellen gets past it by drawing a map of her destination before she leaves. Eva-Marijn decides at home which washi tape, pens and paints are coming along. Instant colour scheme.
Carola preps her notebook in advance, so on the road all that's left is writing and sticking things in.
Photo: carolamvdb
On the road: filling your travel journal
3. Collect everything
A travel journal is more than a diary. It's a place to collect things too: train tickets, receipts, maps, labels, even a napkin. For Liesje, these scraps are the base of every page, with photos layered on top.
Fien keeps everything in a little pouch in her journal and sticks it all in, day by day, once she's home. Lies calls it "treasured junk". Once you start looking, you'll find it everywhere.
Redopapers notebooks have handy extra storage in the cover flaps.
4. No time? Grab a pencil
You don't have to finish everything on the spot. Ellen quickly pencils in what she wants to remember and works it out properly later, when she has more time.
Nele sketches in pencil while she travels and inks the lines with a fineliner once she's home.
Photos: studiocreneeltje
5. Leave room for photos
Most travel journals have photos in them, but printing takes time. Debbie orders hers a hundred at a time. Until they arrive, she leaves a gap and pencils in what goes there.
Rather stick them in right away? Carola and Eva-Marijn travel with a pocket printer for their favourite shots of the day.
Photo: carolamvdb
6. Pick a regular moment
A regular moment makes it easier to keep your travel journal going. Evenings work well, at the end of a day of exploring. It's by far our community's favourite time to journal!
That's when Eva-Marijn arranges the day's paper finds into a composition. "That little ritual helps me settle and gives everything I've taken in that day a place to go."
What do you write in a travel journal?
7. Start with the date and place
Start every page with the date and where you are, as precisely as you can. Eva-Marijn doesn't just write the name of the city. She writes "in the grey armchair on the first floor of the hostel". A detail like that takes you straight back, even years later.
Photo: carolamvdb
And you don't have to write at all! Isa makes beautiful collages of her city trips, days out and holidays.
8. Stick to a simple list
Not sure what to write in your travel journal? Every day, Carola notes down the same four things:
- what you did
- the weather
- your top 3 moments of the day
- how you felt overall
Ellen also writes down her thoughts. What was on my mind? What did I learn? That way you don't just hold on to the places, but to who you were on that trip.
How to keep your travel journal going
9. Make more room
A travel journal fills up fast. A little cutting and sticking buys you extra space. Attach things so you can still write on the back, or add a fold-out concertina.
Tip for beginners: stick an envelope onto a page for extra storage.
Tip for the more experienced: in a Coptic-bound notebook (like ours at Redopapers) you can sew in extra pockets or pages yourself.
10. Do it together
A travel journal doesn't have to be a solo project. Fien has been journaling with her mum all her life. "Our whole table ends up covered in washi tape and stickers."
Lies kept a journal with her four-year-old daughter during four weeks in Japan. They went hunting for stamps, which are "a big thing" there. "I was never really the crafty type, but doing it together with my daughter made us see the trip differently."
Keep your travel journal simple
The best advice came from Carola: don't let it get overwhelming. If you try to do too much, you'll never start.
A blank notebook, a pencil and a pouch for your finds. That's all you need. The rest will come as you go.
Discover the Redopapers notebooks
Bullet Notebook AAF
€29,80 |
Blank Notebook M Leuven
€29,80 |
Lined Notebook Bike Brussels
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