The Art and Value of Journaling as You Travel

Travel can make you a poet. Travel can be spiritual. You meet people on the road you’d never meet otherwise. Traveling rearranges your cultural furniture and challenges truths you assumed were self-evident and God-given. By traveling, you learn not only about the people and places you visit — you learn about yourself. You risk coming home filled with ideas that might challenge your neighbors and loved ones. And you get a strange joy out of sharing them.

But without capturing your thoughts on paper, the lessons of travel are like shooting stars you just missed…and butterflies you thought you saw. Collecting intimate details on the road, and then distilling them into your journal, sharpens your ability to observe and creates a souvenir you’ll always cherish.

rick steves journaling

Choose your travel journal carefully. I prefer a minimalist journal: light, yet with stiff enough covers to protect the pages and to give me something solid to write on (since I often write on the fly without a convenient table). I like invitingly empty pages — not pages decorated with extra literary frills and verbose doodads. It’s my journal, not someone else’s chance to decorate my observations with cute quotes, clever tips, and handy reminders. I use black ink or a mechanical pencil. Nothing should compete with the simple words. Avoid spiral notebooks — they fall apart quickly. A bound book will become a classic on your bookshelf.

The key to good journaling is being both observant and disciplined…to take the time to notice what you’re noticing, and then to jot down your thoughts. I use a tiny, pocket-sized notepad to capture the moment right there. Then, when I have time, I pull out my actual journal, sort through those notes, and organize them into something vivid and fun to read.

Thinking back, it seems I’ve always had a desire to capture my discoveries and eureka moments in a journal. On my first trip (as a 14-year-old), I collected and logged my experiences in a file of a hundred postcards, each numbered and packed with my notes.

Every trip I took inspired my passion for filling up an “empty book,” even back when I was simply a footloose, fancy-free vagabond with no intention of being a travel writer. The flight over came with a ritual personal inventory of where I was at psychologically as I began the trip, and the flight home came with a similar introspective wrap-up. And each night in between, I wouldn’t drift off to sleep without collecting my day’s experiences, discoveries, and thoughts into that book. The book, which started empty, always came home full.

Hiking deep into a misty English moor as a teenage traveler, I wrote, “Long-haired goats and sheep seem to gnaw on grass in their sleep. We were lost in a world of green, wind, white rocks, and birds — birds singing, but unseen. Then we found the stones. Standing in a circle as if for endless centuries — not moving — waiting for us to come. And in stillness, they entertained. After being alone with our private stone circle, Stonehenge — with its barbed wire, tour buses, and port-a-loos — won’t quite make it.” It was on the boat to France the next day that I worked on those rough notes, and realized that finding hidden bits of Europe and bringing them home through my writing was what I wanted to do for a living.

Now, three decades later, I still snare those happenings as they flutter by, eager to see what I can build with all that fun raw material. On my last trip to Helsinki, I was so flustered by the language barrier in an extremely local sauna that I didn’t know how to get a dry towel. Sitting in the corner to air dry, I decided to pass the time observing and jotting down ideas for my journal:

“People look more timeless and ethnic when naked with hair wet and stringy. The entire steamy scene was three colors: gray concrete, dark wood, and ruddy flesh. Surrounded by naked locals (each with a tin bucket between his legs — used to splash cool water on his face), there was absolutely no indication of what century I was in. But from the faces, it was perfectly clear: this was Finland.”

With those notes, I can stoke those memories and revisit that sauna for the rest of my life. Enjoy the physical act of putting pen to paper, and gathering new experiences, lessons, thoughts, and feelings while they are fresh and vibrant.

If your life is a canvas, travels bring new color. And journaling is like being a painter who stands back every once in a while to both understand and enjoy the art as it unfolds.

Comments

18 Replies to “The Art and Value of Journaling as You Travel”

  1. Rick, I also keep a travel journal although I am not as disciplined about writing every night. What I do love about the practice is that years later reading a journal of a particular trip puts me right back in the place…more than photos actually. My photos tend to not seem so unique to me because there are so many images online of every place on earth. But, my words are my own because they capture not only what happened or what I saw or heard or tasted or smelled but how I felt about it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on journaling…your words encourage me to keep up the practice.

  2. I too like to journal when I travel. I always start off filling up the pages every day. But as the trip progresses, my notes/thoughts are fewer. I just get busy trying to fit every experience I can before I move on or leave for home. Even though I take hundreds of pictures, I do like the post card idea. I could write notes on them, to transfer to my journal at another time. Thank you for sharing. Sandie

  3. Hi Rick-

    Thanks for this. I’m an avid travel journeler myself; moleskine, leather bound, unlined journals are my favorite, for all the reasons you mention. When on the go, I often jot notes straight into my guide book to capture specific ideas about a painting, statue, or street corner.

    svhelios.com

  4. My husband is the designated journal writer for our travels, with a little editing from me. If he doesn’t do that and me to organize the photos, we would be lost. The memories often get jumbled by the time we return, so Ian’s journaling is a must. Enables our book making and blogging to be accurate and easier to accomplish.

  5. I havent journaled for years
    Age 18 (1961) took a trip around the world for 1 year I have postcards,travel diary which has daily entries
    After that trip life,family,work had slowed my traveling down. 1980 found me working for Alaska Airlines and the notes are in my files
    I enjoy your insight and writings perhaps I ll get motivated.

  6. I’ve always journaled when I travel, in “travel journals” or pickups from the drugstore. Last few trips I’ve written in my iPad, uploaded to Facebook or a web page along with some pictures. I always say my trips are one third prep, one third experiencing the travel, and one third drawing together the journal and the pictures into an album or website. I recently went back to the slides I’d taken in 1989 in the USSR (and digitized a few years ago); I found my travel journal, and put them together into a Shutterfly book… it was like taking the trip all over again.

    Since I usually travel alone, and independently, going out at night isn’t as appealing as it would be were I with a group – so tucking in to journal is a luxury I allow myself.

  7. Hi Rick, i always knew that my travel journals – and later my travel blogs – would make good reading in old age. Years ago I told myself that it was important to jot down the beginning of each trip, thoughts about my surroundings, and the insights I had gained while traveling. I knew that some day I would no longer be able to travel, but I would have time to reflect. During chemo I have traced many a walk I had done in earlier years. When laid up with arthritis, I can follow and experience a day at a small village. And, sitting at a local coffee shop, I am able to reconstruct the hour spent in a pyramid. Travel has given me much joy, once during preparation for a trip, then during the actual stay abroad, again coming home and reflecting, and finally, now, smiling at the memory of so many beautiful places.

  8. Have been keeping a journal since my hubby and I first started traveling. Their first purpose is to help me put together a scrap book upon return home – and after a couple of weeks, things can run together. BUT, their main purpose for me is in the future. There may come a day when I am no longer able to travel. When and if that happens, I’ll be able to pull out journals and scrapbooks and revisit the many wonderful places that we have visited. The journal will recapture my experiences and feelings, and the photo album/scrapbook will remind me what Hradcany looked like, or Schloss Linderhoff, or the not so well-known places that I would most certainly forget.

  9. I’m 68. I travel a lot, often to out of the way places. I always scribbled daily notes. and then wrote them up and posted them as a blog when I got home, embedded with photos. It’s about how I feel about what I am experiencing. Personal encounters, reflections on the cultures. I love doing this day by day because it captures the immediacy of the day. But I also travel with a small laptop whenever possible, which has gone with me to surprising places, including lodge trekking in Nepal. I write better at a keyboard at this point. I post my “reflections from the field” on a blog every few days, along with those embedded photos. It really doesn’t take that much time. But as Rick so aptly says, the writing makes a big difference in my experience of the trip. And family and friends get to come along.

  10. Thank you for sharing your adventures. Here’s a little memory from one of mine…

    I saw a single gondolier in motion. Two young lovers huddled under one coat giggled together. The music stung my heart. Drizzle rattled down, creating a silver sheen like a halo between the walls and the rain. The couple cuddled and cooed, creating their indelible memories. I remembered Rome, the rain. At least I was prepared for that one. I huddled with the masses under the covered areas, then managed to squirm across the packed space and squirt out on the opposite side like a fish…

    Either the downpour suddenly subsided or everyone else just decided to follow me into the rain, but whatever happened, it was like a cork popped off and effervescence came spilling out. The pedestrian traffic jam dispersed like a swarm of liberated anarchists. It was a bizarre moment, a hushed moment where a congregated mass of potential energy suddenly goes kinetic; it was a simple, nothing moment I would never forget.

    Mental note: Savor the simple surprises.

  11. I LOVE the idea of making a journal with postcards!!!! I wish I had thought of that a long time ago. Thanks.

  12. In keeping with “packing light ” I usually use a lightweight spiral bound notebook. But load it up with little momentos (metro tickets, mini maps, restaurant cards, etc) added with my glue stick. Had to buy one of those in Sarajevo. On our way to Berlin to fill up another book of memories!

  13. We visited Paris 2001 (spring before 911) and I wrote about the day’s events each night before bed in a journal. I am so glad! You think you will remember everything but you don’t. We took a R.S. tour this past summer to Prague/Budapest and I did the same thing. This time, hubby was more interested, so he added his own recollections to the writings. I feel they are invaluable.

    Question for discussion: Are handwritten journals better than typewritten? When you have the actual pen to paper of the moment? Or a nicely typed (albeit saved electronically) version? We have both, and I lean toward the handwritten.

  14. Several years ago after traveling to Italy with our daughter, I began using my journal and video my husband took to write our experiences. It was a wonderful way for me to capture all the great memories. About half way through, I shared with my daughter what I was doing and she said, “Why? No one is going to read them!” Maybe, but I do and happiness abounds!

  15. My journals have become as much a part of my trip memories as my photography. I have published a book with my photography and ,journal ramblings,… and often as I read it now I am not really sure where the words came from. It is that part of you that sees things more clearly when you are fully engaged, as you often are in travel. For some reason I write my journal in the third person, so when I share part of it maybe it doesn’t feel as intimate. It’s easier to look at myself as a bystander somehow. I don’t mind a journal that is also a trip log as I am terrible about remembering places, transportation details, etc., so I designed my own journal (for my grandkids initially) so they would have to fill in a page a day. The last pages are for additional writing, sketching, etc. I also like to recap on the way homeas well as remember the things that surprised me on my trip… those little things that you did not expect, which are so often forgotten.
    I make a new journal for every trip… it seems appropriate to start each journey with a blank slate.It is such an important part of my trip that I cannot imagine traveling without writing… definitely has to be pen (a special one) and paper… I can’t quite think right when I am typing my words.

  16. Thanks for sharing. I also keep a travel journal. It helps me remember what we saw and did. We just came back form Australia and New Zealand and I was very religious about writing, particularly about people we met I am not very prosaic but it is my journal. It is like taking notes in the classroom, if you write it down, it travels up the arm to the brain and remains there, with a little prodding.

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