Out This Door: Destination Reviews • Hotel Reviews • Itineraries • Travel Tips

This article digs into how to choose and use a travel journal from planning your trip to enjoying your destination to sharing your memories.

In this age of digital everything, I still prefer real paper and a real pen. A travel journal is one of the few things that goes with me on every trip. Every journal is especially dear to me. I consider a travel journal to be a distinct, unique, and vital part of my overall travel experience.

In this post I’ll share why I still travel with a paper journal, how I choose one, and all the ways I use it–before, during and after a trip.

• Jump to Why? A travel journal is your judgement-free, creative space.
• Jump to Which? Finding a travel journal that is the right fit for you and your personal style is part of the fun.
• Jump to How? With no rules, a travel journal can be used in so many ways–trip planning, memories and reviews, as a scrapbook, and even just venting!

Why Use a Travel Journal? Why Not Just Use Your Phone?

The camera app is in one place. The voice and sound recorder in another app. The keypad auto corrects my bad typing and changes foreign names to common words that have no relation to what I was trying to remember. Then AI has suggestions of how to make my writing better or leads me down a research rabbit hole.

I don’t know about you, but this does not streamline my creative process at all–it hinders it.

With paper, there’s no interruptions, no rules, no need to be productive. You don’t even have to use pages in order. Just open and write down what you want to write down–a wise saying, a bit of song lyrics, a map of how to get to that awesome picnic spot, a heart with your dog’s name in it.

While a phone encourages you to capture, a journal encourages you to notice.

Writing down a smell, sound, conversation, funny observation or feeling records something a photograph cannot. Where a snapshot is a sliver of time, recording the moment in a travel journal takes time.  The snapshot is where most tourists stop.

The traveler keeps the present nearer by noticing what’s going on. And in the process, our old notions melt away and the curiosity and sense of adventure that drove us to travel, takes us by the heart. We travelers aren’t simply traveling to snap and go. A travel journal is a record that we experience the trip fully.

There may be all sorts of research about the benefits of writing by hand, but I don’t need studies to convince me. I simply think better, and fuller, when I put pen to paper.

Which Travel Journal Is Right for You?

Finding the right travel journal for you involves several practical considerations along with the aesthetic attractions. The search for your travel journal should be an enjoyable process and an inspirational one. This leads to a strong beginning of actually using your travel journal.

Practical Considerations for Finding the Best Journal for You.

Durability: Holding up to the Miles of Traveling

If you choose to carry your travel journal with you on your day’s adventures, you might look for one that has a very durable binding such as a spiral-bound or book binding. Consider the cover as well—a hard, inflexible cover or a forgiving, leather-bound cover protects your journal from the elements, tight squeezes into a travel purse, or your overflowing cup of cappuccino.

Size and Weight: A Balance of Creative Space and Luggage Limits

Your journal should fit easily in whatever you are carrying it in. If carrying a travel journal in a travel purse, you might consider one that is smaller such as 5×7 inches. Keep in mind, the bigger and thicker the travel journal, the more it will weigh. What might look sophisticated on a shelf will be a real pain lugging around Edinburgh all day.

Paper: Thickness Weights for Ink Types

If you are using an ink-rich pen or colored markers, you’ll want heavier, thicker paper to absorb the ink and not let it bleed through. This is particularly important for those who love to draw. Thicker papers also stand up better to glued in elements such as pinched penny tokens and pressed flowers. Look for a cardstock weight of at least 55lbs or more. If simple copy paper is good enough, look for 20-24 lb weight.

Blank or Lined Pages are Both Opportunities for Creativity

If you do more drawing than writing, blank pages might offer more creative space. If you focus on writing more, a lined book helps you to be more efficient with the space. You can even find travel journals with both types in one.

Price

If this is the trip of a lifetime (see my post on TOAL), please allow yourself to splurge. High end journal might run $25, while most bookstore options are around $15. Art journals with specialty paper might run higher. Simple school notebooks are inexpensive, easy to find, and perform excellently for diary-style writing. If this trip, or journal, is one of many (see my post on A LOT), you might consider a journal that you can easily find again to create a series of your travels over time.

The Travel Journal That I Consistently Choose

My preferred travel journal is a composition style notebook—one of those with the black and white cover. I use my journal at down times, such as during long travel and before bedtime, rather than active times like visiting a museum or taking a hike. This means that my journal is not being bumped around in my travel purse—the paper cover is durable enough. The lightweight, lined copy paper of 24 lb weight is thick enough for a simple cheap pen. If I need more heft to a page, I simply glue a couple pages together. The included 100 pages are plenty for one whole trip experience—before, during, and after. As for price, I pick up these notebooks in a pack on Amazon and they come in at about $1-$5 each.

Aesthetic Considerations for Finding the Best Journal for You.

Journals labeled “travel journal” often depict romantic, iconic landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower or the canals of Amsterdam. Eco-friendly options might reflect the spirit of a majestic elephant or a serene mountain. But images such as these are not requirements or parameters to your creativity.

For the agenda-driven traveler, a day planner might offer motivational space to add travel reflections. For the nostalgic, a travel journal cover with a vintage image of the Matterhorn might make a trip to Switzerland that much more special.

How precious is too precious? If a journal is too beautiful, you might save it for the “best occasion” or be afraid to mess it up. That’s too precious. Journals are meant to be used and then admired for their usage.

Making Your Travel Journal Truly Yours from Cover to Cover

Your travel journal reflects your style. There’s no requirement to purchase a travel journal with a pre-designed cover. You can make the cover truly unique to you. This is one of my favorite reasons for choosing simple school composition notebooks—so I can decorate them myself!

If you want to make a plain notebook into a travel journal that feels like yours, check out my simple journal cover project using decoupage (the art of cutting and pasting images). No artistic expertise is needed. I have done this fun, simple project with children and with stoic adults who say they are “not creative.” The project requires only scissors, white glue, and some old magazines. Oh, and a sense of adventure (like travel itself).

How to Use a Travel Journal

The idea of a journal or journaling often brings to mind a diary with daily entries or a scrapbook for gluing in ticket stubs. And you can certainly do that, but there’s also so much more you can do with a travel journal.

My philosophy is that travel journals are messy and fun and user-friendly. No autocorrect or searching through file storage. And no rules.

Tip: Write your name and contact info on the cover so it can be returned to you if lost.

Though the idea of a journal or journaling often brings to mind a diary with daily entries or a special book, journal synonym for a self-discovery self exploration self improvement experience or a scrapbook for gluing in admission tickets. And you can certainly use travel journals in those ways. But there’s also so much more you can do with a travel journal.

Using a Travel Journal Before Your Trip: Planning

While you are doing your research before your trip, your travel journal can be used for:

• packing lists
• restaurants you want to try
• places to visit
• foreign words and phrases
• foods and drinks to try
• questions you want answered
• maps and routes
• any other info that will be useful to you during your trip

Now that these are recorded in your travel journal, they are all in one handy place, ready for the trip!

Using a Travel Journal During Your Trip: Recording the Little Things

During your trip is when your travel journal becomes that partner with your phone’s camera. Or maybe you’re not much into taking photos, then what gets recorded in your travel journal really takes center stage.

Here are some ideas for what you can use it for:

Observations

We travel to see new sites, experience new cultures, learn new tidbits of what in history led us to where we are today. Use the journal to record what you experience firsthand. What are the Italian women wearing at la passeggiata?  What are the subtle differences in taste between Scotch brands as you travel through Scotland? What did the tour guide’s retelling of the battle bring to your mind’s eye as you looked at the landscape now?

Drawings

Bad, messy, quick, skilled, slow, silly. Using your travel journal for drawing, even if you don’t consider yourself talented with drawing, is an excellent way to “see” your memories rather than simply reading. We love pictures in books, when we add a picture in our travel journals, even if they are a list of important road signs and symbols to know, our eyes go right to them.

Lists (of anything)

I’m a huge fan of lists! I make lists of the words I should know when I visit a foreign country and of the foods I should try. While road tripping through the Bible Belt of the USA, I made a list of the names of churches in the little towns we passed. Lists are easy to skim, easy to read, and show an accumulation of knowledge and experience. Also, the simple act of writing helps you to remember your trip with even more detail.

Reviews

Many of us travelers use Google reviews to choose which destinations to visit. Since I appreciate a good review, I try to write good ones that will help others. Drafting a review in my journal first allows me to say as much as I want–good, bad–so I can reflect on the whole experience. Then I rewrite using the information that will be helpful for future visitors and helpful for the destination to improve upon.

Daily thoughts

Your travel journal is also the perfect place to write out rambling inner thoughts. Traveling is an excellent time to mull over future plans for your career, creative endeavors, or bettering relationships. Putting these ideas and visions in your travel journal, even when they have nothing to do with your trip, can help you focus your future into reality. Conversely, venting in your journal about bad experiences while you travel is a therapeutic way to release tension without boiling over into saying or doing things you might regret.

Scrapbooking

Add to your travel journal the ephemera of a life well-lived. Ephemera is the short-term physical stuff: a pressed flower, a ticket stub, a paper menu, a sticker. Add a glue stick along with your pen or pencil to open us this creative option. Or add the bits when you get back and make your travel journal come alive!

After the Trip: A Travel Journal bridges the Past to the Future

Looking at what you recorded during your travels keeps the experience in mind. Immediately, of course, friends and family will want to know about the trip. If you have processed your experiences in your travel journal already, the stories you tell will be more focused on their worth. As you continue to reflect on the experience, your own travel philosophy and advice will develop, helping you have more enjoyable trips to come.

What to Write in a Travel Journal

Often when people hear “travel journal,” they think …

Oh, I don’t have time to sit down every night and write three pages.

I am giving you permission not to. Your travel journal doesn’t need a schedule or rules imposed by anyone but you.

I’ll have a spurt of several pages while I go on about our amazing tour guide. Then for days I don’t write anything at all—I’m too busy enjoying the journey.  

A travel journal isn’t another item on your vacation to-do list. If keeping up with it starts feeling like homework, then the process is not enjoyable.

Journal Prompts

I get it—a clean page is intimidating. Start with the date and location. Or a scribble—yep, mess up the page a little and it’s not so precious and perfect anymore–instead it’s ready for action!

And if prompts help, here are a few to get you started…

• Just focus on one little aspect of the trip: your hotel room, what the locals here do differently than you do at home, or compare destinations.
• Imagine talking to your best friend about what you did that day. What would you say?
• What surprised you about this destination?
• Retell a moment that made you laugh.
• Describe your favorite meal of the trip.
• Photography not allowed? Write your mind’s photos of the place. Or draw them.
• What was being sold in the outdoor market? Or in the grocery store that’s different from home?
• What do you want to remember five years from now?
• Upset about an aspect of the trip such as the hotel bed, the service of the restaurant, the late train affecting your schedule? I find that writing out my frustrations gets them out of my head and I can move on.

You don’t ever have to share your journal with others. You don’t have to do anything productive with your journaling. From scribbles to spreadsheets, from lists to laughs, it’s all good.

Final Thoughts

I hope I have made the case for how dear your travel journals can become. Your new travel journal beckons the moment you claim it as yours. Begin to add your hopes, inspiration, and to-dos before the trip. As you travel, the journal collects the real stuff of life: the little bits that we typically forget. In the act of recording life is the act of making your life.

A travel journal helps you remember the parts of travel that your camera can’t capture.

When we return home and we return to these travel journals, the memories are visceral. We can taste the tart lemons of Sicily, we can hear the whoosh of wind through castles in Scotland, and smell once again the balsam of the forests of the Alps. Just looking at the page brings the trip back in full sensory mode.

Featured Travel Journal Products

Do you have travel journal suggestions? I would love to hear from you!