7 Reasons Why You Should Start Keeping a Travel Journal

For those who go to an American summer camp, you’ll have new memories every minute. We promise you’ll look back on your working summer in America and say, “it’s the best I’ve ever done”, so make sure your story lives up to the memory.

There are many reasons why you should start a travel journal, so here are seven of the best.

Travel journals are the physical form of your travel memories, prompts that allow you to reflect on your travel experiences years from now.

These days, it doesn’t need to be pen and paper, either. If you’re more comfortable journaling digitally, you can easily save your entries and use them as inspiration for scrapbooking or collages.

The best thing is that there’s no ‘proper’ way to do it; only your way. Whether anecdotes, creative writing, or a collection of images, a travel journal is immensely personal to you.

It’s there to evoke, not just to entertain.

A great reason to keep a travel journal is to help you organise your day, trip, and thoughts.

If you are journaling online, you can create different folders and tags to stay on top of your itinerary. Alternatively, if you are keeping a traditional journal, you can use index cards to organise your entries.

You can create a card for each place you visit and list essential details, such as dates and times of events, names of people you met, and highlights of your trip.

Whatever your mode of entry, treat each as a mini scrapbook, adding photos and mementoes (such as ticket stubs) to add a personal touch.

Like all atomic habits, keeping at them builds positive habits that will snowball into the rest of your life.

Travelling is a whirlwind of memories, thoughts, and emotions.

Often, the sheer number of them means you’ll forget certain moments (those who have done a day at summer camp will understand what we mean.)

These points often act as a great reference point when going forwards. If you’re ever feeling down, you can look back on brighter times and remember they’ll come again. Or, you may have gone to a location that influenced you to write down some side business ideas, which would’ve immediately disappeared when you had your next drink.

Allow your travels to act as your cue, and make writing in your travel journal the action in response.

When we’re caught up in the moment, it’s hard to fully appreciate all the nuances that come along with it.

Reflective writing prompts can help you process thoughts and feelings, allowing you to appreciate your travel experiences and their meaning. They weren’t just good times; they were learning curves, challenges, formative moments, core memories, and more.

Sometimes we may underplay how important these days are, and a travel journal shines the light on the raw emotion of how you felt at that point.

With reflection, you can learn even more whilst staring back at your emotions.

One of the best reasons to keep a travel journal is that it inspires creativity.

The basic form of collating your experiences (and the corresponding thoughts) into a travel journal and presenting it in a way that hasn’t been done before is the essence of creativity. You’ve created something from nothing.

You may say, “That’s well and good if you want to be an artist, writer, or photographer.” But it also goes beyond that.

It forces everyone to look at the world, and then yourself, differently. It encourages you to try something new and to see how you feel as a result, regardless of your talent as a writer or photographer.

Again, it’s intensely personal to you.

Travel helps drive creativity, and a creative mind can help guide your life in the direction you want it to go.

One of the best reasons to keep a travel journal is that you can share your experiences and inspire others.

Everyone loves a good story, and you’ll undoubtedly have one to tell. You’ll have more moments that you can remember, and this is, quite literally, the reason you need to track everything you do in a travel journal.

The late-night snacks on the beach may seem nothing more than that at the time. But looking back, lying under starlight and chatting about your place in the universe without a care, you’ll realise the importance.

The perspective you’ll gain on what you want in life can be mind-blowing.

Keeping a travel journal can help you practice self-awareness and mindfulness.

The benefits of journaling include helping you to be more aware, allowing you to process and reflect, and grow. This is no different from keeping a travel journal, which means it can be an entry point into a voyage of self-discovery.

There’s an obvious irony about how travel outwards is also a journey inwards, but it’s true. You’ll learn so much about yourself that it’s hard not to grow. Documenting both journeys is a way to solidify them.

If you’re a Harry Potter fan, think of your travel journal as your ‘Pensieve’.

You can take strands of memories from your busy mind whilst still remembering them and put them into a physical form. Weave them however you wish, whether that be in writing or photographs.

But creating a physical travel journal will not only display the past, but also how you want to shape the future.

Other creativity articles you’ll like:

• Camp Leaders Guides: Travel Photography for Beginners

• Camp Leaders Guides: How to Become a Travel Blogger

• The Camp Catwalk: What to Wear at Summer Camp