12 Benefits Of Keeping a Travel Journal

Traveling gives you perspective.  It is an education, a challenge, and a break from repetitive day-today-life.  It offers an opportunity to discover new places, ways of life, cuisine, accents, and languages.

People travel for many reasons: Business, vacation, adventure. Regardless of your reasons, you want to document every step of it, such as highlights of the trip, events, things that make you smile and things that you can reflect on. The best way to document your travel is by keeping a travel journal. And here are the benefits of keeping a travel journal:

 

1. You Become a Great Resource

A travel journal can be a great resource or log for your travel adventure. Suppose you traveled to Italy and discovered a marvelous restaurant, with amazing food and awesome service. When you find a gem like that you'll to make a record of it.  You know your family, friends, and colleagues are going to ask you for recommendations, so now you become a great resource for them. 

Let’s face it, if you don’t have a travel journal on hand to log your trek, you may not be able to remember that marvelous restaurant, considering the many exhilarating experiences you go through during your travel. That’s why a travel journal comes in handy. With a travel journal, you’ll be able to keep a detailed description of the restaurant, including the name, location, the best dishes and unique outdoor activities to recommend to them.

A travel journal will also enable you to keep a record of the artist you stumbled across in the gallery, or the family you met when visiting the local village. While you can take many pictures of the restaurant, gallery or family you met, pictures don’t really capture your feelings at that moment or the sounds and smell that is going on. In other words, a travel journal can help you keep records of all those details that can’t be captured in a picture.

2.  Photo Memories

Photos can bring back memories of the places you visited during your travel. A travel journal is a great way to keep photos of places you’ve visited alongside a quick editorial. You can stick those photos in your travel journal and revisit them later - sometimes years later.  And the good thing about a travel journal is that you don’t limit yourself to photos. You can pick up postcards, dried flowers, and souvenirs and add them to it to help you bring back the memories of the places you’ve visited in the future.

3.  It Makes a Great Planner 

A journal can be a great addition to your travel arsenal. As a busy traveller there are sights to see, schedules to make, and places to visit.  Some timelines are hard and fast milestones, some events are on a best-effort basis, and some are "if time permits".  You've done a lot of pre-planning research - why not log your efforts in your travel notebook and take it with you as you conquer the world?  There are many different ways to set up your travel journal to be a valuable addition to make the most of your travel.

4. It’s a Great Way to Kill Time

Standing in a long queue to process your travel documents (or to enter a park or museum) or sitting in a plane can be a daunting experience. You can make those activities less wasteful by updating your travel notebook. A travel notebook offers you an alternative activity to kill time during those time-consuming activities.  Rediscover your footsteps and log your discoveries to make the best of the deadtime.  

5.  It Stimulates Your Memory

Studies show that when you write things down, your brain stores a lot more information than when you don’t. If you write your travel experiences in your journal, your brain will create powerful connections with the information, allowing you to remember it for longer. That means you’ll have an easier time recollecting the experiences in the future without having to revisit your travel journal.

6.  Brings Out Your Inner Creativity

Most people are very creative but they just haven’t discovered it yet. Keeping a travel journal is a great way to discover your inner creativity.  Dress up your journal with pictures, sketches, color, washi tape, anything to help make your journal fun and memorable.

7. Makes you a Better Writer

What to do to become a great writer?  The easy answer is practice.  Most great writers will tell you that they traveled a lot with a journal to document their experiences. Keeping a travel journal can make your potential become a reality. Travelling provides a wealth of material and inspiration. You don’t need to search for creative inspiration. It’s everywhere. You stumble across animals and plants, you meet people, experience different cultures, see amazing sights, and try out different cuisines. For an aspiring, budding or experienced writer, this is a windfall of experiences and emotions. No wonder that most of the great movies out there have been written by writers who’ve traveled the world.

 8.  Relieves Travel Stress

Traveling can be a stressful activity. From the planning of the travel, long flights, concerns about not achieving your expectations, safety concerns, thinking about home, to navigating unfamiliar territories, these experiences can cause travel stress and completely derail you. On such occasions, the travel journal can be your reprieve. Writing will strengthen and comfort you during upheavals. Writing reminds you of the purpose of your travel and gives you courage and resilience. Once you start writing, your mind shuts out all the stress and lets you focus on your writing. 

9. Gives you Something to Rant Into

I bet you’ve had an upsetting moment or two during your travel. When such moments manifest, the rant is mostly directed to the tour guide, a friend, or family member in your entourage. You don’t want to upset these people when traveling beyond borders. A travel journal can help you dodge this embarrassment. You can direct your anger to a travel journal by writing whatever upsets you.

10. Acts a Souvenir Scrapbook

It’s a great feeling to have a physical product that you can show to your friends and family or your future generation to read and marvel at. That would certainly be an unforgettable treat, considering that the digital devices we store our memories today can easily get lost or get damaged.

11.  Makes A Great Companion 

Some people just love or have to travel alone. If you’re one of them, then a travel journal can be a great companion.  Capture your thoughts, share your goals, or simply use your travel journal as a distraction on your alone days.  You can fill those awkward moments with your journal when a conversation is not readily available such as standing in line or waiting for your dinner to arrive.

 

12. Organizes your thoughts

A travel journal is the best place to jot down your travel goals, expectations and ambitions. By keeping a travel journal, you’re able to monitor your progress and focus on the next achievement. In other words, a travel journal helps you achieve your travel goals to ensure you make the most of your trip.


It’s a good idea to carry along a great looking journal that’s impressive to look at, and of the right size.  Check us out here at Wanderings. The next time you organize a vacation, an adventure or a business trip, make sure to come along with a travel journal.