How To: How to successfully document a travel experience in a journal

The one thing I enjoy doing while traveling is bringing back a journal of the experience for all to see. They can look at your photos, but that only gives them half the story. I have a travel blog online as well, but I only post the pictures not the experiences. Sure online travel blogging is the way of the future and all, but seriously if the internet crashes one day into oblivion I swear I'll be one of the few with documented written journals. :D

So here are the essentials to bring with you before leaving for your trip:

1. Journal
2. Pens
3. Glue sticks (which I've left on many occasions, it really should be #1 for me)
4. Highlighters to mark the route taken in an atlas.
5. Scissors
6. Zip lock bags for souvenirs
7. 30 minutes at the end of each day
8. mini pocket journal

This is really all you need to make a great journal of your trip. The most important is to leave the time at the end of the day to glue, cut, and write. My last road trip I went with a friend who was legally blind to drive at night and sucked at driving during the day so I never had the time to make the journal. The task of writing a travel journal after the trip takes a good week to complete, and is really very painstaking. You might as well just make the time during the trip while things are fresh in your mind, you won't regret it.

First things first, keep track of all statistics in a mini pocket journal. Just things to write down throughout your day. Mileage and times if your driving, names of interesting towns you want to write about later, names of people you meet, if your in a foreign country then the names of things you have never seen before. Believe me while visiting overseas at the end of the night you're not going to remember that thing you saw in that place around noon that some person gave you to eat and it was fantastic. No one wants to read 'that travel journal', believe me.

Next while you're experiencing everything throw every kind of souvenir you can find into your zip lock bags. This doesn't have to be things you buy either. It can be receipts, napkins, business cards of restaurants and hotels are a must, the chopstick wrapper, a green tee bag, match box, ticket stubs, takeout menus, EVERYTHING. You never know what you'll use at the end of the night to make your journal visually stunning.

Here are the things to buy for your journal:
1. postcards (they really are fantastic, more people should buy them)
2. stickers
3. bookmarks
4. maps (free and bought)
5. whenever near a photo kiosk, print out tiny pictures from your memory card
(this is the funnest, to choose your own pictures of the days events to paste about the pages of your journal)

Its hard to tell someone how to make a travel journal, but I can sure show you how I make mine. And the first thing I do when I get home is mail it to my mum so she and my family can read all about my trip afterwards.

With all these tools you should make a visually stunning, fabulous travel journal for all to see. The best part is you can always look back after years pass and read about your journeys wrapped up by the fireplace with a nice cup of coffee or whatever you drink while wrapped up by the fireplace with a good book.

Also something I'm really excited about I found recently but haven't bought yet are these leather journals with pockets for pictures. I cant wait for my next trip to try them out.

http://www.renaissance-art.com/catg18/category.aspx

For more of my scanned images of journaling go here: (possible strong language)
http://travelingnomads.blogspot.com/2008/03/wow-travel-journals.html
-I'll upload more (better) pictures tomorrow when I am allowed!