Something to hold in your hands...keeping a travel journal

One of my favourite books on journal writing is Sheila Bender's exquisite Keeping a Journal You Love. In it, she suggests that one of the reasons we should keep a travel journal is so that we can have "something to hold in your hands when you get back home."

Before you leave, you need to ask yourself – why am I really keeping this journal?

Do it now – spend a minute or so considering the possibilities. Are you keeping it purely for yourself? To record memories? For possible publication? For future reference and usefulness? For future generations?

The reasons why you are keeping it matter, and they change what you record and how you record it. Take this into account too.

And experience tells me that when you are travelling you won't just be using your journal to write in. It will become a de facto wallet, filled with tickets, brochures, pictures, cards and other things. Taking a tip from Lynne Perrella’s Artist’s Journals and Sketchbooks, I now paste en envelope into my journal before I go.

You can glue or tape one in.

It's good for newspaper clippings, extra notes you made on other things, cards, menus, fliers, receipts, leaves, tickets...well, it's just damn handy.

If you have talents in the visual arts area, do take a closer look at Lynne Perrella’s book – it is filled with useful ideas, even for non-artists like me.

Maybe you can bring a small stash of photocopied images of favoured spiritual figures and symbols? You can stick these into the journal when you visit associated sites to remind yourself more quickly when you review your journal. You might also use them as prompts for more spiritual and reflective writing, or as a guide for those times when you feel like getting grumpy and complain-ey.

Use them to mark out special work and to inspire new work and thoughts.

Quite often we might avoid writing in our journals because we fear our thoughts aren't profound enough, that we're not thinking big. Please don't let this get in your way. I am a big advocate of the beauty of the small. Observing the small and writing about it can lead you to some really big places.

 
The ego mind tricks us into thinking that what we do is not important and that we must always be doing something big.

We have to be working on the 100,000 word novel, the entire exhibition of paintings, the history of everyone who ever had the name “Chester” and on and on.

One of the most liberating things to realise creatively, and one that I think you will find all professionally creative people work with, is that we only ever have to concentrate on the small and the immediate.

I am working simply on a page, a paragraph, a sentence, a word.

For the time being I am bringing beauty to one line, one stitch, one pose.

I can forget about the end, about the editing, the choreography, the dramaturgy, the Booker Prize, the adoring fans leaving roses at my mausoleum.

This too extends to themes. I think that, at the heart of a lot of terrible art, is this idea that I must be writing only about Things That Matter.

But anything matters in the scheme of things, especially when we are travelling. Our minds are much more alert to the wonder of the everyday.

Any observation, any encounter, any shade of blue or curve of clay. Any piece of glass.

We create beauty, grandness, piece by piece. You can forget about your social duties just for a moment and just be in touch with what you need to do in that second. It will be beautiful and it will have meaning.

Keeping a meaningful travel journal - some tips from around the web

I am a compulsive keeper of travel journals. Indeed, I keep a journal all day, every day, no matter where I am in the world. I have my own particular system, which I have developed after many years of travel and writing about my travels. Here are some other great travel-journal keeping tips that I have discovered online:


1. There are no rules - The pacsafe blog says that you should just forget all of your pre-conceptions about journal keeping and use your travel journal as a source of pure pleasure, to be written in whenever you want, however you want to.

2. Find a vintage map of your destination and put it in your journal before you go - Cities and places change, but they also stay the same. Writer Yolanda Edwards uses old maps she has printed out from the internet as a visual aid and prompt in her journals.

3. Work out who you are keeping the journal for and why - Is it for your own future reference? For future publication? For your children? On the Wanderlust blog Lyn Hughes reminds us to be realistic about what we are using our journal for, because our intent should influence the way we write and what we are writing. She is so right.

4. Maybe you should be keeping a travel blog? - At Solo Traveler Janice quite rightly reminds us that there is a technological solution to our urge to record. A travel blog is open and immediate and can let everyone we know see what we are doing on our journey.

5. Pick the right journal - This one is about as subjective as you get. One woman's perfect journal is another's nuisance. All writers are particular about their tools, and Amanada Kendle at Vagabondish wants you to make sure you have the journal that feels just right for you. Moleskine? Spiral bound? School exercise book? You be the judge. It's going to be your constant companion. One more thing: When you look back over the old journals, just seeing the book's ccover and picking it up will remind you of the thrill of your old journey.

6. Make sure you have written down all the practical stuff - It is essential you record the date and location at the very least! You want to know where you were when you came up with that amazing insight. Debbie Busch on BootsnAll even suggests you have a template of necessary information that you can check off: Destination, Date, Accomodation, Restaurant, Site etc. It's a great idea.

7. Create an acrostic - Yes it's corny, but it can spark your creativity and help sum up your feelings about a place. Kelly Westhoff on Go Nomad uses this technique when she is journalling abroad.

8. Information gathering - When you get home and your friends ask you about a particular destination, having a journal to turn to can be immensely useful. Women on the Road says we can use our old information-gathering to remind us where a good restaurant was (write down its full address and how you got there - i can guarantee you WILL NOT remember!), or a location to avoid.

9. File postcards in there - This is a tip I use a lot. When you visit a location, the available postcards can often be quaint, and will always feature the most important visual cliches of the area. It can save you having to describe, say, the Taj Mahal, but remind you that on Saturday the 18th you were there. I also stick in tickets and fliers and smallish brochures. I love seeing them later.