Join us at Call of the Wild!

Call of the Wild's long awaited video is here! Check out our 60 sec. video about women's hiking, backpacking, sea kayaking, and multisport adventures -- plus much more!

Tips for Keeping a Travel Journal

As I was moving boxes the other day, I came upon my collection of travel journals.  When traveling, I often keep a journal and spend time in the evenings, at the beach, or on the bus writing my thoughts down about the world around me.  My journals aren’t fancy, leather bound books.  Usually they are simple notebooks I dig out of my desk drawer before I leave or purchase at a paper goods store once I arrive.  When backpacking, it can be as simple as 2 sheets of paper that I use every inch of real estate on over the course of the week.

When reading through my travel journals, I am always struck at how my stream of conscience blends my new environment with my thoughts and worries from home.  I was reading my journal from Hawaii and came across the line that read, “Kauai is so lush and peaceful.  Just looking out the window at the banana tree has a calming effect.  Maybe I could take the banana tree home with me and plant it in my front yard so I could gaze at it there.”  In my Guatemala journal, I found, “The people here are so welcoming and sharing.  They would give you the shirt off their back if you’d let them.  I am not sure I could say the same about my neighbors at the moment.”

I don’t keep a journal at home, though I often wish I did to gather my thoughts in such a way so I could examine them later.  Notes such as the ones above make clear that travel is an escape for me.  It’s the opportunity to transport myself to a place that is more peaceful or friendlier.   It just wouldn’t take having to get on an airplane to make the discovery if I wrote more often.

I’ve kept a travel journal now for nearly 2 decades and have these tips to share

1.    If you don’t usually write at home, fear not.  Take the journal with you and when the mood strikes you, just start with a few simple sentences like, “Just arrived.  Very sunny.  Crazy taxi stand chaos.”  You’re not writing a Pulitzer Prize winning book here. You just want to get the juices flowing.

2.   Take the journal everywhere with you.  When a few moments of free time arrive, write a paragraph or two.  My writing is usually much more abundant as the trip goes on.  I soon find I am eating in restaurants writing or staying up at night jotting down thoughts.  

3.    Let the destination and experience be the channel for your real thoughts and emotions.  As shared above, I often find things I write about end up conveying other emotions that I brought with me from home.  As the days go on, my journal becomes just as much about the funky man I met in the fruit market that day as the struggles I am having with my husband.

4.    Find artifacts to also add a bit of color to your journal.  Cool postcards, printed napkins from restaurants, sketches of a place you’ve been add the visual element of your journal that sometimes can bridge a place together when words aren’t doing it justice.

5.    Remember that your travel journal can be your souvenir.  A few photos and a week’s worth of precious writing can be much more meaningful than the obligatory magnet and snow globe at the airport gift shop on your flight home.

If you find yourself outdoors when traveling, a waterproof journal is good to have --- or make sure you have a Ziploc bag for your journal to keep it clean and dry.