Tag Archives: journaling

Travel Journal Tips: So you’re planning a cool trip–or, even a work trip. What if you kept a record of your time “on the road”? For many of us, we have good intentions to document, but either we forget without a plan or, we are overzealous and overwhelmed by how and how often to do so.

By the end of this quick piece, you will have several unique opportunities to try travel journaling for your next trip, along with inspiration from trips of my own.

There are many different ways to keep a travel journal. If you’re like me, you start off excited on Day 1 with a written journal entry written at midnight detailing every place you went, person you saw, food you ate, fun fact you learned.

By Day 3, you’ve written how tired you are and manage a couple of scrawled lines about something uninteresting and Days 4-6 you forgot you were keeping a travel journal for your special, long-awaited trip.

…And, by Day 12, you’ve been home, unpacked, and forgot you even were on a trip because you need another vacation. If you’d like to keep a travel journal that’s not so complicated, read on.

Here are a few ideas to simplify a travel journal so its fun and manageable. Be intentional about a theme for your journal. This means you will have pre-decided which details to include because they are the most important to you.
1. Collect images and thoughts around a certain theme in your notes app.
2. When you think of someone while you’re traveling, send them a postcard or photo with a text.
3. Do a daily post on social media with minimal captions.
4. Try a weekly reflection (instead of daily) and highlight memories from the week.
5. Record cultural “oops” moments that made the travel memorable.

1. I love to collect photos and thoughts about certain themes, like: circles, coffee, architectural features, the color blue, food, etc.
I love wandering old cities and looking down and up to notice what’s different from usual. Journaling about these differences simply to create captions is really easy. Paying attention to graffiti art and vandalism can spark curiosity and help you see a normal street from a unique perspective–like how spray paint works on a brick building versus the smooth curves of a Royal Mail Post Box.

2. If you Think: “Oh, I wish so-and-so was here!” write them a note or take a photo for them.
I love circles and collect photos of circles on streets, architecture, art, and design. But, it’s especially fun to receive text messages and post cards from my friends while they are away traveling–that have circles they found that made them think of me. Travel journaling is about capturing the moment of being away. Often we keep journaling to ourselves, but it can be enriching when we share it with others. This can be part of building flourishing relationships.

3. Do a daily “post on social” with minimal caption words.
This can literally be the highlight reel of your common themes that you’re focusing on. Maybe you watch the sunrise every day from the different places you’re staying. This along with a few notes of your favorite meal or coffee you enjoyed could be a fun way to share, but also to journal in a way that is sustainable.

4. Writing a weekly reflection journal entry could help you remember the important moments.
Maybe jotting down mileage walked and temperature highs and lows could help jog your memory as to how you spent the week. But you could also use reflection questions like:

-I most loved (LOCATION) because of its (BLANK).
-I enjoyed (BLANK), but I’d like to come back so I can (BLANK).
-I wish I had (BLANK).
-I remember when (PERSON) did (BLANK).
-I hope in 10 years, I remember (BLANK).

A helpful way to inform this type of reflection when travelling to a new place is to find a walking tour. This photo below is of me posing with a walking tour guide in London, in January 2023–we are in a spot where the Beatles famously posed for the photo the guide is holding. Walking tour have built in highlights for discovery and reflection.

5. Record cultural “oops!” moments.
Particularly when you are abroad in a foreign culture, but sometimes it can happen regionally, you will likely make a cultural mistake. For me, that happened when I first moved to England, thinking that fruit salad was a main course addition to a meal.

I thought this because for 25 years of my life, my mom had brought and served fruit salad during the main course. Well, I learned that in England, fruit salad is for dessert (I mean, pudding!) and isn’t meant to even be on the table during the main meal.

Another cultural “oops!” I encountered was also in England, involving crossing the street. At busy intersections there are pedestrian areas with big signs painted on the floor, often with arrows, “LOOK RIGHT” so that people familiar with road systems that are based on left-hand drive cars (like America), will know to look the opposite way before crossing the street. I’ve stepped out into the lane of oncoming traffic many times in my travels to the UK–especially when I was just visiting.

Some prompts for journaling cultural moments:
-I thought it was normal to have (BLANK – type of food), but it turns out it’s (BLANK) instead.
-I thought someone said, “(BLANK),” but they really said/meant “(BLANK).”
-I had an odd interaction with someone in the (LOCATION) today when (BLANK) happened.

Whenever I travel, I love to keep records of the vehicles and types of transportation I use. Whether I’m running and I photograph and jot a note of where I ran and what it felt like, or I’m flying over an ocean and record snippets of overheard conversation, all of these pieces can be great for travel journaling.

Other Ideas:
-Record bird sounds and names–you could use an app like Merlin.

-Use a sketch book to record architecture, landscapes, people, or patterns.

-Capture all the flowers or trees and add a couple of facts about the flora.

-Write a summary of how you moved around the places you visited–perhaps, include a map. Or, if you run, you could record notes in a running app like Strava.

-If you attend a concert, show, art exhibit, history museum, play, keep the ticket stub or program in a scrapbook and write a few words or phrases to help you remember.

I hope you feel inspired to keep a travel journal–some sort of record of where you’ve been and what you’ve experienced, so that you can truly remember your time. It’s important to rest, and if you’re like me, it’s so easy to rush through all the beauty and peace in order to chase “it all.” But, so often this ends in exhaustion and wishing you’d never gone away in the first place.

And, if you’re able to share your traveling with someone you love, maybe you can (like my best friend and I do) take photos of each other taking photos of things. That’s a really fun way to record our travels.

Have fun and happy travel journaling!