How to create a travel diary?

The summer vacation is now over. You have traveled, in France or elsewhere; you took advantage of it! You were right!   

Why not now, create your travel journal and write about your vacation?

The travel diary, a sort of private diary of your vacations, is more and more trendy. By creating it, you will keep the memory of your vacation for the rest of your life. You don’t have to travel halfway around the world to make your vacation great! Any trip, even short and close, is interesting. It all depends on how you live it! It is what you feel and what is deep inside you and your heart that is captivating. Your impressions, your installation, the choice of vacation, the accommodation, the location, the decor, the people around, the weather… There is so much to tell!

I went to the Basque Country last summer; therefore not very far from my Charente-Maritime.

I took notes at the end of each day to write down the activities, feelings, weather, etc. I will offer you this travel diary at the end of October for free access on this blog. In this article, I give you tips for creating your travel journal and writing about your vacation.

What is a travel diary?

The travel diary is a literary genre, just like a novel, short story or poetry.

The travel diary evokes travel in the broad sense: inner journey, exploration of an unknown land, How to create a Wikipedia page an initiatory journey, during a determined period.

Most of the time, it is a personal story recounting the highlights of a trip, in a form that is not linear.

The travel diary, in a very personal form, forges a link between the author and the reader.

Because, in a particular format, it allows to transcribe emotions, anxieties, thoughts, to apprehend a certain reality.

The history of the travel diary dates back to the Renaissance in Europe, with the initiatory trips to Italy where the authors described their quest for the culture of the country.

Some tips for creating your travel diary

Before you start, choose a nice notebook or notebook that inspires you (it’s still better to create yourself than to buy!).

You can also create it with your computer or use a website specializing in this field, if you wish.

You don’t have to spend a lot of time customizing your travel journal.

The main thing is to have a notebook that will make you want to write in it!

Of course, you will have taken notes during your stay, every day, at a fixed time.

On something worthwhile, something that struck you.

It is a date with you, a time when you isolate yourself from the rest of the world to enter yourself and communicate with you.

When you’re on vacation, it’s a great time to take some time for yourself and get down to writing.

To create your travel journal, consider using photos, illustrations, and especially small texts.

You do as you feel; you are free, it is a creation tool!

Let your artistic soul come to light!

Use your travel log as if it were a logbook, following the chronological order of your trip day after day.

You can insert any length of text you want.

Or caption your photos.

Do not paste, moreover, only rectangular photos. Cut them out, create new shapes and have fun with them!

Do not hesitate to insert icons; sometimes that is better than a long message!

Above all, remember to air out your text to prevent your travel diary from being too dense and difficult to read.

You can also insert quotes or draw.

The most important, in my opinion, is to insert color.

Otherwise, your travel log may be monotonous.

For inspiration, you can check out examples on Instagram or Pinterest.

You can also get inspiration from browsing scrapbooking sites on the Internet. There are dozens of them specializing in this area.

But, please don’t let it be a copy of a model you’ve seen; rather show originality!

With these few tips for getting started, you are now ready to write your travel journal!

Where to start?

The travel journal is a journal that compiles your travel stories.

You can start by writing a caption on the photos you want to insert.

Here are the questions to ask yourself:

• Where was the photo taken?
• Who took the picture?
• Who is in the photo?
• What did you find nice to inspire you in the photo?

Describe the setting in the photo. Write down your impressions; don’t hesitate to explain everything!

Summarize your impressions:

• How was your trip in general?
• What did you learn that was new?
• Were there any surprises?
• Were there disappointing things?
• Do you want to go back to this place?
• Why?

You don’t have to be an artist or a great author to write your travel journal.

It’s a writing exercise, like so many others!

This is an exercise that will make it easier for you to start writing, because you have a foundation to lean on.

To begin with, you can tell your route.

Describe how you are feeling, what you are feeling with the greatest possible honesty, trying to engage all of your senses:

• What shocks you
• What scares you
• What upsets you
• What makes you happy
• Do you hear any unusual sounds?
• Do you smell any particular smells?

Talk about the people you meet; tell about the encounters, the anecdotes.

Write down what surprises you, what challenges you.

Write down all the little information that is important to you:

• The number of kilometers traveled during the day
• Today’s weather
• What you bought during the day
• Daily budget

At the end, consider taking stock of your trip.

You will come back to the ideas received and the expectations you had at the start.

Above all, take pleasure in creating your travel journal. Have fun!

Keeping a travel diary should not become a constraint for you, nor a painful vacation duty that you impose on yourself.

No interest in forcing yourself to do this kind of exercise if you don’t enjoy it!

If you don’t like to write, stick with some loose information; this will be enough and you can also create your travel diary!

The benefits of the travel diary

Creating a travel journal helps train your memory and structure your thinking.

Keeping a travel journal will protect your memory and reduce certain degenerative diseases.

Neuroscience has proven it: writing down your memories in a journal allows your memory to train and it allows you to better organize your thinking!

Every trip leaves lasting traces in everyone’s memory!

What could be better than to show your travel diaries to your grandchildren later, to let them know a little about your life and introduce them casually to geography!

Creating your travel diary will allow you to remember every moment, the best moments, to keep the good addresses discovered during your trip, to sort and group your photos.

All of this will be loaded with pleasant symbols for you.

Above all, creating your travel diary will help you keep track of unique moments spent during your stay, in France or abroad.

You will prolong these moments by writing them forever in your notebook. That way you won’t let them escape.

You will allow your memories to exist, your photos to come out of their computer file in which they are forever locked!

Your travel diary is a personal tool, which you will enjoy sharing with your loved ones.

It’s also like your keepsake box!

During your stay, your notebook, which you use to take notes, will be your traveling companion, especially if you are traveling solo.

You will have related everything there, your joys, your sorrows, your beautiful encounters, your favorites, Wikipedia experts or also your potentially dangerous situations!

Your notebook will become a companion, your friend and confidant.

It makes no noise, takes up little space, is inexpensive, follows you to the end of the world and you do what you want with it!