Travel Journal Geek

When it came to writing my recent post about our trip to Moscow I had a hard time thinking what to write. Partly because I think a moment by moment account of everything we did and ate would probably be incredibly boring for anyone other than myself (or my Mum) to read but also because I'd already scrawled it all out in my travel journal.

I've always liked keeping ticket stubs, leaflets and maps from holidays as kind of souvenirs but in 2009 I started sticking these things in a notebook. Looking at this notebook now I wonder why I ever thought an ATM receipt from Lisbon would be worth gluing into a book, but I also did some pretty cool sketches of chickens! On holiday in Slovenia in 2012 however I decided to start a proper travel journal and wrote down what we did each day of our week long holiday and since then I write in a journal each summer holiday.

The main reason I write a travel journal is so that, one day when I'm old I think it will be really nice to read back over our adventures and remember what we did and how I was feeling at that time. A picture writes a thousand words but sometimes, unless you're a really brilliant photographer, photos can't portray a whole memory. Especially things like how it feels to capsize a raft in the middle of grade four white water rapids (- like being in the spin cycle of a washing machine).

I've amassed 5 different notebooks/journals now - not all of them full. We've been on a few winter holidays where I've not written a journal and I really regret this now as I struggle to remember all the things we did, so from now on I'm going to take a journal every time I go away. If anything it's a good excuse to buy nice stationary and who doesn't enjoy doing that?