Your guide to travel journaling
A travel journal may serve as a personal travel companion to you. It is also a great way to preserve memories of your adventure, store your photos and a medium to express your creativity while on the go. In your journal, you can document your vacation experiences, write about the people you meet and new friends you make, and describe the places you visited.
A travel journal can also offer inspiration for your next trip or a guide for a repeat trip to the same location as details of all major and minor experiences are penned down and you can easily refer to them. There are a variety of ways to start a journal either with an app or a notebook – though the latter is most efficient and allows you to express your thoughts and tap into your creativity the old-fashioned way, below are some tips you can employ when starting out.
Get a dedicated notebook and pen
Visit your local bookstore or shop online for simple and unique notebook pieces. Depending on your style, go for a book you’d be comfortable looking at and writing in. Pay attention to the cover page and how that fits into your kind of person. Be intentional about the size, and shape it comes in and the details that come with it. The same goes for the pen or writing tool you’ll go for. If you don’t mind, you can decide to shop at your destination because of the range of options you might find there.
Choose when to make a journal entry
It’s up to you to decide what time of the day is most convenient for you to write. You can choose to write in the mornings once out of bed or late in the evenings to reflect on your day’s activities and encounters. Regardless of what you decide, it’s important to record your experiences while they are still fresh in your mind so you don’t lose details. The location also plays an important role when journaling. Choosing a comfortable place, void of distractions can help you get in touch with yourself on a deeper level to express your thoughts and feelings. Journaling in your hotel room, at the park, on the bus, or in a cafe are some good locations to explore.
Include time and location stamps
Not including dates, times or location information when making a journal entry can make it hard to recall an experience and the exact feeling you had at the moment in future references. At the top of your journal page, right before you get into the details, add some information that would help you remember the moment. Be as descriptive as possible. You can start with the day’s date and the time of day followed by where you are writing from. Describe your surrounding environment to the nitty gritty details. Is it a cafe on the corner of a street? What street? What is the name of the cafe? Are you sitting alone? What kind of chair are you sitting on? What’s in front of you or beside you? If you can’t entirely describe your surroundings as much as you want, take a photo of it and pin it to your journal page.
Develop your observation and storytelling skills
To have a great time journaling, you will need to be able to observe a lot of the things that go on around you. From the incredible sights of nature to wildlife and even buildings and their forms. To achieve this, you will have to make use of all your senses. What do you hear? What can you smell, see or feel? Using all your senses to craft your story helps keep the memory alive. For your storytelling, it doesn’t have to be spot-on. But just enough to bring you back to the moment when you read it in the future.
Read other people’s travel diaries
This can come before or during your trip to help you get a sense of the different writing styles you can use and how you can express your travel story in a concise manner. A travel memoir, Eat, Pray, Love from 2007 by Elizabeth Gilbert is a good start to ignite your imagination.
Write after your trip is over or when you return home
While you can use your journal to plan your trip and envision what it’ll be like, you can also use it to share your afterthoughts on the experiences you had. Including the new things you learned or the interesting conversations you had and even the things that may have surprised you or made you disappointed. Reflecting on your travels gives you new guidance and information you can apply to your future adventures. It also opens you up to learning about yourself, the people you may have met and things you enjoy doing.
Now that you know what to write in a travel diary and how to write one, all you need to decide is where to go. Pick a place and Gojolley is here to help you get there.
