Keeping a travel journal ...

I hope you are enjoying the stories of my travel as much as I am enjoying sharing my travels with you.

While out browsing this week, I spied a lovely pink notebook & had to have it because I am a great notebook fan & this one is so pretty. WHY notebooks?

I LOVE travelling, exploring new places, new food, new culture, new experiences & new people; for years I have bought a book, or a proper travel journal to take with me to make sense of all I see & do. It is also a good way to be able to revisit the holiday any time I like ...

When I am on long coach trips (as the last 3 long 14-18 day trips have been), I love to spend time each day catching up on my journal, jotting down people & things I have found interesting. It also helps me to be able to label my photos once home.

They have their own space in our study at home & I just love the process of spending time reflecting on the days travel before writing it down - that process helps to make the experiences real ...

When I am on an organised tour, it is easier to keep a travel journal because I scan my itinerary, separate it in to each day & then glue it on a page & skip several pages before doing the next day. I leave between 3-6 blank pages between each day (depending on the thickness of the book & how long the trip is.)

I also add in the hotel names as that helps me to remember them for Trip Advisor feedback because on long trips the hotels blur in to one.  I also jot down the names of the travel guides that we explored the cities with - there are always some memorable ones who bring the cities to life with history, anecdotes & their personality.

This format means it is easy to keep updated in the journal & there is usually space to put in a map - often annotated with places I have taken photos of & will need to label.

I sometimes do little pen drawings & captions as they are a good way to remember events.

I also pop entrance tickets, church notices, restaurant bills etc in the book as well & then glue them in when I get home.

Bulging books show the added extras ...

Maps of favourite cities  - I have visited Warsaw twice & absolutely love this beautiful Polish city ...

A brochure that caught my eye - it had some good background on the city ...

Fascinating places to visit ...

Found in an interesting Copper domed church in Helsinki ...

Visiting the salt mines way down under the earth in Krakow ...

It is a lovely way to revisit a holiday. In Riga, the map we picked up on our own girlie trip,  suddenly gave us a walking route & enabled us to visit the Ruins of the Choral Synagogue which I shared ...

Memories of the lovely Latvian capital of Riga

When on a trip to South Africa to visit family, I also take a journal to jot things I need to remember, places I have been & postcards I find on the way ...

Monogrammed {D} notebooks are always a welcome gift from friends who understand my love of books & journals ...

Some of my travelling stories ...

Do you keep a travel journal? Do you collect fridge magnets, tickets, postcards of your travels? Tell all to inspire me to make my journals even better.

Thank you for stopping by, I love reading your comments & appreciate your time spent here,
Dee ~💕~