Create a Travel Journal

Summer is almost upon us! The most popular time for traveling with friends and family and what better way to get started than to create a travel journal?

When you travel you get to see new things, learn new cultures and taste amazing new dishes. Get out of your comfort zone and do something new. This is where a travel journal comes in. You can create a travel journal with just a notebook and your imagination or you can order one with prefilled pages for you to fill out.

What is a Travel Journal?

A Travel Journal is a journal or diary that you take with you on trips and vacations. You can keep your memories and experiences. Your journey and adventure! A place to write down your plans, and keepsakes in one place.

Why create a travel journal?

What is a better way to keep track of place you have been that a journal? Something you can enjoy sharing with your loved ones. Showing them the adventures and journeys you have enjoyed. You can keep it to yourself and have something that you can look back on to keep track of the little things, like walking on a beach, or the smell of the island. Things you will want to come back to and relive later on in life.

What to put in your Journal

There are so many things you can put in your journal. So many mediums you can choose from. You can just write in your journal, kind of like a diary. Paint or sketch images, take photos, or decorate you pages with a theme to go along with the place you are visiting. Using stickers, washi tape, pictures, stamps, and so much more to make your pages come to life with the look and feel of where you are on your trip.

You can also use your travel journal for your itinerary, or packing list. Interesting places you would like to visit or a bucket list. A map tracker would be a wonderful way to keep track of where you have been. Places to look up, or check out while you are there. Meals you enjoyed and new people you met. There are so many things you can put in a travel journal to make it more to your style.

Ways to create a travel journal

Travel journaling doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming. Although I love creating pages and decorating them with all kinds of things using my bullet journal, some like the simpler ways of creating a travel journal. The great thing about computers is that you can use apps such as Tripcast, Exposure, Bonjournal, or Prenzu to keep track or your writing while traveling. You could also make a blog of vlog of your travels. People love getting ideas and opinions from those who have been there before. You can always use the old fashion paper and pen as well.

Creative side to Travel Journaling

Travel journaling doesn’t have to look like a diary or journal entry. Be creative and make something amazing with items you have at home. Some items might be photos, postcards, matchbooks, napkins, and so much more. My favorites are washi tape, stencils, stamps, and stickers. You can also use paintings, drawings, receipts, luggage tags, business cards, and so much more to remind you of where you have been or where you’re going.

Some questions to ask yourself

1. Why are you going on this trip? Is you trip purely for pleasure? Maybe is for educational purposes or a business trip and you want more information on a trip back again. Whatever the reason, make sure you enjoy yourself.
2. What experiences occurred? Did you try something new, go on an excursion, or meet someone new? Make sure you write the small things too.
3. What is your itinerary? What, where, and when do you plan on doing on your trip? Museums, beaches, parks, monuments. Take notes of you your destinations and some information about each.
4. Who did you meet? Did you meet some new friends? or maybe some old one you haven’t seen in a long time. Either way, write down some information about them. Who they are, how you met and what drew you together.
5. What foods did you try? One of my favorite things to do is try out the local dishes. I don’t think I have tasted something I didn’t like so far. Be specific. Use your senses to describe them.
6. What were some of the ups and downs of your trip? Did it rain the whole time, did you get sun burned, food positioning, a rash? Was it sunny, the food was fantastic, the museum gave you a complimentary gift? Even though some of these are not so good things you would want to happen on your trip, you will probably laugh about it later so keep track of them.
7. What would you tell others that want to visit the same place? Give them your honest opinion, but also encourage them to visit for themselves. Just because you didn’t like something or had a bad experience doesn’t mean they will.
8. What would you change? If you could have done something different or went to see some other museum or monuments than what you went to see, would you have changed your trip? Why?
9. Where do you want to go next? This is the difficult part. Deciding where to travel to next. So many places to choose from!

After the Trip

When your trip is over you can go back and write an overall summary of your experiences. What you liked or what you would changed. Add anything you might have missed the day before. If you remember, you can create pages for previous trips you have been on, but didn’t have a travel journal then to record your journey in.