Keeping a Creative Travel Journal

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There are so many ways to creatively document a special trip. I don’t travel often, but when I do, I try to make a record of the trip that I will want to look back through and relive the memories. Adding a visual element to the travel journal makes it more interesting and captures the memories better.

One of the earliest ways I recorded a trip was to make a scrapbook, where I collected tickets stubs and postcards and photos and newspaper articles and pieces of pamphlets and magazines to tell the story of my trip. It was a long trip, study abroad to France for six weeks, so I kept a notebook of the places I visited and the photos I took there so that I would remember what each photo was about. It was very time consuming, but it was a very special trip that I knew I wouldn’t be able to take again.


Scrapbook page from my study abroad trip to France when I was at Brigham Young University. Click on the picture to zoom and look at the details.

On another trip to Madison, Wisconsin, I brought along a travel watercolor kit. Each evening I would scroll through the photos I took that day and do a quick sketch of the most memorable photo of the day. Next to the watercolor sketch, I wrote a sentence telling what was happening in the picture and the date. It didn’t take long, and it’s a lot of fun to look through. The kit didn’t have many colors, and I didn’t want to spend much time blending them to get just the right shade, so maybe next time I’d bring a bigger kit. And more than one brush.

Watercolor journal from a long business trip/family vacation to Madison, Wisconsin. The captions are tiny. From top left to lower right with links so you can explore the places we visited!
We tried orange custard chocolate chip ice cream from Babcock Dairy Hall at UW. Yum! 7-14-17
Giant globe outside the geology museum at UW we visited yesterday. 7-15-17
A giant cauldron a the cheese-making museum in Monroe, Wisconsin. 7-17-17
For family home evening yesterday, we helped do yard work at the church building. 7-18-17

Last August, I went on a very short trip. It involved a lot of standing in lines and waiting. I brought along a pen and a sketchbook. Whenever we were waiting again, I picked something to sketch. I took a quick reference photo, and started sketching. It was a lot of fun. It made the wait seem short, and I didn’t worry about making everything look great because I had the photo if I wanted to do a better picture later. Looking back through it, I wish it was a lot longer. This is a little strange, because it would require more standing around waiting in line.

Sketches made while waiting in line for Astro Blasters. If that doesn’t give away the location of our trip, you need more Disney in your life!

Waiting @ Airport to head home. This was the last sketch for our trip.

I am sure there are more ways to keep a travel journal. I will probably do some research before my next great trip, whenever that may be. Have you kept a creative travel journal? What did you do? Did it turn out well? What would you do differently? Are you planning to keep a creative travel journal in the future? What will you do?

As I described in my post last week, keeping a comic diary is another way you can make a travel journal.