by Margaret Dempsey

Created on: June 09, 2009

"Journal" is a much more broad term than "blog." A journal typically consists of original words written on papers bound in a book that you can buy in a myriad of colors and styles at your local bookstore. Yet journals can be and are so much more than that. Journals are able to cross the boundaries of hand-cramping, ink-blotting and writer's block.

As a veteran of travel both domestically and internationally, short-term and long-term, I've learned the fine line between journals and blogs. Blog exist more for the readers; journals exist for the traveler and for the memories. Instead of running back to your hostel at night to spend 30 minutes retelling the story of the Albanian natives who offered to buy you absinthe-flavored gelato, a more colorful entry could be a business card paired with the mini spoon you sampled gelato with plus a picture of the adventure added in later. In travelling, it is possible and even essential to pull brochures and coupons and fliers from practically every setting and scene, giving life and distinct sensory memories to your stories. In pulling out your journal from that trip to China fifteen years ago, when you come across a stained napkin from the local restaurant, instead of reading a combination of words describing what you ate, you are taken back to the exact moment when you made eye contact with the mysterious attractive local in the corner in the middle of trying to negotiate the local fare with the non-English speaking waiter.

Pictures and material items in addition to your own words speak farther than the refurbished stories and feelings emitted by a web blog. There is something so personal about reading words written in your own handwriting rather than the font you ever-so lovingly picked out from the 5 classic fonts offered by your blog host. The old stain of a tear drop in your own journal is a more powerful decoration than the picture of the Swiss Alps adorning the background of your blog. Blogs don't allow you, or most, to really give the full picture and story of the physical and emotional scene of your travels. Writing "I saw the Berlin wall today" is the safe and guarded blog version of the journal version: "I saw the Berlin wall today and the power of its significance left me breathless."

Blogs are fun for those living vicariously through you back home, and they allow you to share your travels with loved ones without writing the same stories over and over in email replies. Yet journals allow for a much larger and more grand travel experience once the adventure is over.

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