Have you ever traveled for a long time and had the necessity to write a travel journal to track all your experiences? We encourage you to follow your instinct and read about all the benefits to keep a journal of your travels. This is a message from two travelers that regret not having consistent journaling habits.
5 REASONS WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO KEEP A TRAVEL JOURNAL
Pro tips: You will use your travel journey almost every day, so choose a nice and resistant one! Riteintherain offers beautiful strong notebooks, perfect for adventurous travelers like us.
REMEMBER EVERYTHING
Even if you have a good memory, during a long term trip you will see, meet and discover so many things that will be impossible to not to forget some. By writing down the things you have seen and done during your trip you will remember more.
Also, once back home, everybody will ask you for tips and suggestions about places to visit and what to do during their next holidays. It is good to take track of all the interesting things you will discover around the globe to share your experience with other people.
WRITE ABOUT THE PEOPLE
During a trip, you will meet so many beautiful people. Write about them, keep their contact and make connections. Use your travel journey as an address book, some people can share with you amazing tips, while other some beautiful vibes. Some of the friends you meet on your journey may visit you back home, some others will remind you of a beautiful experience. People definitely can make a trip!
NOTE DOWN YOUR FAVORITE STUFF (RECIPES FOR US)
Did you find something that you really like? A beautiful cafè, a nice song, a breathtaking sunset, a design inspiration, a dish you want to replicate? Your travel journey is the perfect place to take note of all these beautiful ideas you will see around the world. If you are good at sketching use drawings to help you remember. Our travel journey, for example, is full of delicious recipes we tried in all the different countries we visited. Looking forward to making that delicious zucchini pie we had in Canada.
PLAN YOUR TRIP
Where are you going next? What is your next destination on your bucket list? Use your travel journal to write about the things you want to do, the sights you want to see. We use our journal to take notes of the buses, flights, and hotels. If you take a look at our travel journal you will see lots of to-do lists, calendars, and notes about the places we want to visit. This activity helps us a lot in planning our trip.
REFLECT ABOUT YOUR UPS AND DOWNS
A travel journal is a place to record all the new things you have discovered, but also the emotions you have felt. Being a long term traveler is such a beautiful thing, that involves lots of ups and downs. Use the journal as a diary, write about the new experience you had or what made you uncomfortable about something.
Is there anything you would have changed about your trip? Traveling can help people grow. Think about your journey and if it helped you grow in any way.
CONCLUSIONS & EXTRA TIPS
Keeping a travel journey is such an important thing, as mentioned before we regret the fact that we didn’t take this activity so seriously. We did follow some of the points we listed above but, unfortunately, we avoided to write down our personal emotions. Hopefully, they will remain in our minds for the rest of our life.
But how would I choose the perfect journal?
Don’t get one that is too big. You can always buy another one while you are on the road.
Choose a cute journal you like to look at, it will be your best friend during your trip.
Avoid spiral notebooks, they are not resistant.
We fell in love with this brand. Their notebooks are very robust and their special paper shades the water, allowing you to write everywhere, in any weather condition.
Happy travel!
LOVE IT? PIN IT!
I don’t keep a paper written journal, but I do try to type out notes on my laptop when I travel. This makes later blog posts much easier. Plus, I’ve just always considered my travel blog (now in its 21st year!) my “travel journal”. 🙂
Thanks for sharing your experience. Wow, 21 years of blogging is a lot!
I wrote a daily diary while travelling for three months 23 years ago. But now we travel full time it makes more sense to use the internet and social media to record most things. We write a travel blog and post on Facebook, that way our friends and family can also enjoy our travels in real time.
Social media are always a good option to keep the family posted.
Thanks for sharing your thought with us 🙂
I’m all over the place with my travel journal. I write some by hand. I take notes on my phone, and also record voice notes. I know I’m going to forget unless I capture it. Even when I don’t have time to write, I make sure to use my 5 senses travel journal to capture what I see, hear, smell, feel, and taste. I find that when I capture what my senses experienced I’m more likely to remember the other details I didn’t write down.
Wow, the ”5 senses” is such a good method. Thanks for sharing it. Reading your message we just realize that we should have some voice notes somewhere. Totally forgot about it 🙂
At the beginning of my travels, I kept a written journal. It’s a must, so much happens when you travel, it’s hard to remember it all. Now I write about my adventures online, but I’m terrible at remembering to back up my computer:!
Super hard to remember all the incredible experiences, people and beautiful places. We took a lot of picture and videos, hopefully, technology will help us remember.
This is such good advice, I have been quite good at journalling while we are away, but am yet to find the method that works best when you are on the road, your advice really helps. thank you .
Journaling is very personal, we noted from all the comments we received on this post. Everybody should find it’s on way to keep track of all the fantastic experiences we live as travelers!
I’m finally getting better at journaling when I travel. I would start off really good and then get far behind as my trip went on. I have figured out just notes and not trying to write down everything works for me. I hit the highlights and some of the details I know I will want to remember. I also like remembering how I felt!
Love your method, we are referring the fact we didn’t take note of our adventure since the beginning!
I need to get better about bringing mine. I ALWAYS forget it, and so I’ve never used it. I’ve adapted lol I use my camera as my journal. I’ll take pictures of the signs to help remember the places I’ve been. Followed by pictures of the destinations, information signs, names, maps, anything I want to remember. But that doesn’t capture how I FEEL in those moments. So I have a recording app where I’ll open it up and talk into it while I’m there. I can label the recordings and listen to them later to bring back the memories.
oh wow! it sounds a lot of work, really like your method and wish we could be more organized. We have to admit that we also like a lot the traditional method of writing down our immediate impressions.
I think travel journals are the best thing we travelers can do on any vacation or trip. It is so important to keep track of all the wonderful experiences and I find that writing it down makes me that much more aware of all the wonderful things I am experiencing.
This is really helpful. I’ve been trying to keep journals on some of our big trips lately, but never seem to finish them. I love all the tips you provided!