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A travel journal can become a treasured possession as you look back on your adventures and share with friends and family details of your trip. Keeping a travel journal for the length of your holiday can be a daunting prospect if you aren’t used to journalling but here are some tips and ideas to keep you going.

The Benefits of a Travel Journal

Research

Start using your travel journal well before you leave home to record notes of any tips people give you or information you have read online. Include the most important information from travel guides in your journal, so you have easy access to the information you need when you get there.

Photos

You return with a card full of photos but after a while your memory fades and when you look at a photo you can't remember the name of the mountain, river or even town you are standing in. The beauty of digital photos is they stay in chronological order just like your journal so you can add descriptions and notes to your photos when you return home. Refer to your journal to confirm which places you visited on each day of your trip.

Advice for Friends & Family

If you have friends or family visiting the same location, use your journal to record names of great restaurants, the cost of activities you recommend, the route you took driving to your destination and anything else you would have liked to know before you arrived.

Nostalgia

A journal lets you relive your travel experiences – good and bad. Sure your photos allow you to do this to some extent but a journal allows you to capture the detail of the everyday things that you don’t photograph. You (or even your ancestors) may want to retrace your journey in 10 or 20 years time and a travel journal allows you to do this in detail.

Ideas to Inspire your Travel Journal Writing

What are your expectations?

Before you leave home, write an entry about you are expecting to see and learn about the new culture. It may be interesting to see how much or how little your expectations differ from reality.

Build Excitement

Write some notes about the places you want to visit, photos you want to take and food you would like to taste on your adventure. If you are travelling with your children, ask them what they think they will see and experience on the trip. Record their comments and read them back to them while on holidays.

Ticket stubs and mementos

Bring your journal to life by including tickets, passes, postcards and brochures. Take a small glue stick with you so you can glue as you go and don’t lose the bits and pieces of paper. Have you children help you so it becomes a family project that everyone can contribute to during downtime.

Travel Guide

Include plenty of notes you can share with friends and family who are intending to travel to the same places as you. They will be grateful for any information you can tell them about attractions you loved and didn’t love and the reasons why. The detailed information allows you to join in their excitement and relive your experience.

Include a Wish List

At the end of your travel journal include a list of places you would like to visit in future. Make the list part of your goals to cross off as many of the destinations as possible.

Check out these Travel Journals

The Chart & Map Shop stocks a range of travel journals to suit every kind of traveller. Buy one for yourself or a beautiful bon voyage gift for a friend or family member.

Vintage World Map Journal

A perfectly sized A5 sized book containing 150 blank pages for writing and sticking in mementos or you can use the document pocket. A bookmark ribbon and security band finish off this cute, all-purpose journal.

Cruise Journal

If cruising is your caper, you’ll love this nostalgic journal specifically designed for recording your cruise trips. The book is divided into seven sections for recording details of up to seven expeditions on the lined and unlined pages plus an address section for details of people you meet.

Gourmet Travel Journal

If it’s the food and wine you love to try when travelling, this is the perfect journal for you with tab sections for writing out recipes, recording wine tasting notes and a travel planner. The popular journal contains illustrations and details of Australia’s gourmet destinations.

Travel Buddy

If you like to be well organised when you travel, then this little book could be your perfect companion. With space for your itinerary, accommodation details, transport and tours, a pocket for notes and tickets as well as your journal, you will be able to keep everything in the one place.

Travel Diary

This handy diary is perfect for your backpack! There’s loads of space to record your itineraries, expenses, names and addresses of people you meet on your travels, as well as all your daily musings. Extend the excitement of your adventure by taking a travel journey and record all your thoughts, notes and mementoes to share for years to come. If you would like more information about any of the travel journals, contact us or call into the store.