5 reasons to keep a travel journal
Travel opens your heart, broadens your mind and fills your life with stories to tell.
Traveling has become a significant part of many people’s lives, but how much detail of our travels do we actually remember? How many photos are tucked away on your smartphone or on your hard disk, ever so rarely to be seen again?
Traveling can be a life-changing endeavour and is one that should be cherished and appreciated. Even if traveling has become a mainstream, it is still a privilege. Not least, it is highly educational, as it opens our eyes to a greater horizon and teaches us to be more understanding and compassionate. By keeping a travel journal, one is not just preserving memories but is also building a personal homage to a very beautiful aspect of one’s life.
Here are 5 benefits of keeping a travel journal:
1. Preserving memories
Our memory is not as reliable as we think. Often times, we find ourselves trying to remember something from our travels but simply cannot do so. Keeping a travel journal is a great way to preserve one’s memories. It is an ideal place to finally print out some pictures that would otherwise just stay hidden on our smartphone or computer. Depending on how you structure your travel journal, it is also a wonderful aid to plan your itinerary and keep important travel information that you may want to share with others who also wish to visit the place.
2. Creates self-awareness and mindfulness while traveling
There is an inexplainable power in the pen and paper that forces you to be in the moment. When you are sitting in front of a blank page, thinking of what to write down, you become more self-aware and mindful of your thoughts and experiences. When you write down memories, you discover your values by realising which parts of your experiences stood out the most. It also helps you be more mindful before, during and after your travel. If you use a travel journal to plan your trip before reaching the destination, it encourages you to educate yourself more about the places you are going to. While you are on your trip, working on a travel journal is a great way to digest the day or be productive during downtime (eg. train rides). If you journal only after the trip is done, it provides great retrospective insight and allows you to relive your visit one more time.
Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of the familiar comforts of home and friends. your re constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dream, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.
3. It unleashes your creativity
To people who have never journaled before, the making a travel journal may seem relatively easy. After all, it’s just a matter of pasting papers and photos, writing down some words and putting a few simple sketches here and there, right? If you have actually already sat in front of a blank page, you will realise that it is not as easy as it looks. Journaling is a process and forces you to think creatively. You begin to understand how colours go together, how sketches complement photographs and you get a very good feel of the universal principles of aesthetics, layouting and design and makes you develop a style of your own. Furthermore, it helps you become a better writer and communicator. Lastly, keeping a travel journal provides a sense of accomplishment. Every person who keeps a journal knows the rewarding feeling of marvelling at a finished spread that you have just created on a blank paper in your journal.
Sometimes, we pressure ourselves to make our journals look perfect. But remember that journals are personal and intimate. Not every page needs to be a masterpiece all the time.
4. A lifetime companion
There are a few things in life that we will have throughout our lifetime. Keeping a travel journal is a timepiece that accompanies you throughout life. It is a loyal friend in your bookshelf or drawer, ready to be taken out to be revisited in sweet nostalgia. A travel journal is also a memoir and a life’s work of your travel throughout the years. In a sense, it is an autobiography of you and your travels.
5. It's fun
Last but not least, keeping a travel journal is simply fun. We often think we need to do things in order to fulfil a higher purpose. But sometimes, we can and should do things simply because of the enjoyment and happiness they bring. And keeping a travel journal is an activity that is not just fun, but on top of that, also an enrichment in one’s life.
Traveling with The Long Weekend
The Long Weekend provides thoughtful insight into some of the most beautiful places around the world. It aids you in planning your trip, and more importantly, helps you gain a better understanding of each destination. It aims to be equally inspirational and educational, hoping to create a beautiful portrait of the place, its culture and its people. Each chapter contains blank pages, where you can journal down your own experiences in each destination. Whether The Long Weekend is your sole travel journal or a complement to another one, it is a unique ensemble of creativity, pursuit, knowledge and inspiration.
