Trust me when I say having a travel journal is better than any souvenir money can buy. Creating a written and visual recollection of your own unique travels is an incredibly rewarding process, and I highly highly recommend it for any traveler. Whether it’s during your travels, shortly after, or long after returning home, all that matters is that you start.
I’ve talked to some people that are reluctant to start a travel journal because it might seem as though there is pressure due to all of the social media aesthetics and the exaggerated ideas of travel journals that they create. To that I say: it is your journal and only your journal, so make it however you like and as long as you remember that it’s yours, it will turn out great. When you’re years down the line and look back at all of the awesome memories you have stored in there, you won’t care what other peoples’ journals look like.
Keep All Paper
Whether it’s a train ticket, travel brochure, restaurant receipt or anything in between, I highly recommend keeping any kind of paper you receive on your travels. Not only will it serve as a memory, but also as a token of where and when you traveled since it will likely be printed in the language of the region with dates and times.
Polaroid Photos
Polaroids are my personal favorite part of my travel journal, because while polaroids are pretty much always a really cool aesthetic, their aesthetic is about ten times cooler when you take them as you travel. It not only makes you feel old-school but you also get the physical photo immediately after it’s taken, and I’d take a physical photo over one in your phone’s camera roll any day of the week.
If you want, you could substitute polaroids for disposable cameras, or really any kind of camera as long as you get your photos developed, but I really prefer my Polaroid camera because it instantly prints the photo and there’s something exciting and satisfying about waiting for the photo to develop right in front of your eyes.
The only drawback of a Polaroid camera in my opinion is how bulky it is. It can get kind of inconvenient to travel with since it’s a very square shape and it takes up a lot of space in a bag, but I’d still say it’s worth it. I’ll be a Polaroid advocate until the day I die.
When To Do it
There’s definitely an argument to be made as to when to fill out your travel journal; while you travel or after. I’ve done both, and both have their perks. If you fill out your travel journal while you travel you’re probably going to have more details to add since the events are more fresh in your mind and you’re still in the flow of traveling, whereas if you fill it out when you get back from traveling you get the cool experience of reminiscing of all of your adventures and all of the magical feelings of being in a foreign land come rushing back.
Honestly, I think I recommend filling out your travel journal once you return from your trip since then it doesn’t take time away from you travels and you essentially get to relive your adventures when you write down and recall everything that happened. Let me know in the comments which one you like more.
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