I am essentially backpacking through Europe for 3 months from December to February. Now, there are many useful guides and blogs around that give potential travellers like me extremely handy tips and information on how to make travelling easier whilst making the most of your trip. Some of these tips are usually about items many novice nomads overlook when making a packing list.
I am going to make a few posts on handy things I will be buying/taking with me on my trip that some travellers may not have even considered prior to investigating said travel blogs.
A Travel Journal
A Travel Journal
Source: google.co.nz via Angela on Pinterest
A very handy item indeed! We may live in an age of iPads and Macbooks but keeping a travel journal gives you a solid item to record your memories in by hand. There's just a classic appeal or romance to being able to preserve your travel memories in a notebook. It's more personal and you can take it with you everywhere in your bag or pocket. This means you can whack out your journal everytime you stop at a chic Parisian cafe or Bavarian biergarten to doodle your thoughts or spill your drinks onto. Writing in a journal while you are on the streets also makes you less conspicuous to potential thieves compared to broadly typing away on your expensive looking laptops.
Not to mention, there are many advantages a notebook journal has over its electronic counter-part. In notebooks you can paint landscapes and sketch cityscapes. You can stick in cards, tickets, photos and any other piece of memorabilia you collected on your trip. You'll thank yourself for the nostalgia everytime you flick through it in the future. Jakob Barry has published a great article on why it is important to keep a travel journal.
Firstly, exercise books don't have as much appeal to write in. This may be because it's reminiscent of school and homework.
Secondly, they aren't made to last. The point of keeping a travel journal is to have a piece of memorabilia to look back on. Flimsy notebooks may get covers folded in and pages ripped out before you finish your trip. Additionally, thin pages means writing might transfer onto the next page, paints will run and ink will bleed right through.
Vagabondish's Amanda Kendle expresses quite succinctly that "we do judge a book by its cover, even if we wrote it ourselves". Look on to read her tips on writing a travel journal.
TLDR; Invest in a sturdy, functional hardcover notebook with nice thick pages. You'll most likely find yourself writing in it more frequently than you think and grabbing it off your shelf and looking back through it more often in the future.
P.S. who doesn't LOVE the smell of pages from notebooks?!
Not to mention, there are many advantages a notebook journal has over its electronic counter-part. In notebooks you can paint landscapes and sketch cityscapes. You can stick in cards, tickets, photos and any other piece of memorabilia you collected on your trip. You'll thank yourself for the nostalgia everytime you flick through it in the future. Jakob Barry has published a great article on why it is important to keep a travel journal.
TIP:
It is important to consider taking a journal that would encourage you to write in them. This may sound strange but compare a nice leather bound notebook to a spirax exercise book.Firstly, exercise books don't have as much appeal to write in. This may be because it's reminiscent of school and homework.
Secondly, they aren't made to last. The point of keeping a travel journal is to have a piece of memorabilia to look back on. Flimsy notebooks may get covers folded in and pages ripped out before you finish your trip. Additionally, thin pages means writing might transfer onto the next page, paints will run and ink will bleed right through.
Vagabondish's Amanda Kendle expresses quite succinctly that "we do judge a book by its cover, even if we wrote it ourselves". Look on to read her tips on writing a travel journal.
TLDR; Invest in a sturdy, functional hardcover notebook with nice thick pages. You'll most likely find yourself writing in it more frequently than you think and grabbing it off your shelf and looking back through it more often in the future.
P.S. who doesn't LOVE the smell of pages from notebooks?!
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