by Arlene Poma

Created on: October 04, 2010

Meet your new traveling companion.  Pick up a pen or a pencil.  Find a small blank book or a notebook of your choice that contains lined or blank pages.  And be prepared to write in your own handwriting.

These common items are readily available.  They don’t have to be expensive, but they need to be something that will fit your lifestyle.  If you decide to keep a travel journal with you at all times, you can write about your travel experiences anywhere you go.  You can include entries containing your ideas, feelings and dreams.  For present and future networking, you can keep the names and addresses of contacts all over the world.  For the purpose of jogging the memory, you can keep lists or a calendar.  You can also tape or paste photographs, documents, brochures, maps, tickets, etc. to the pages.  If you like to doodle, draw or sketch, blank pages provide an outlet for artistic expression.    

You are your own reporter and copy editor.  When you keep a travel journal with you, you are available to document and record the information at that moment.  As the event happens, you can write an accurate description of what is still fresh in your mind.

The secret to keeping a travel journal is to be consistent.  Write and don’t hesitate to express yourself each day.  Don’t feel the need to edit your work.  A travel journal is a tool that reveals your true self and what you observe of the people you meet and the places you visit.  You can record specific events and capture the mood of the location.  What makes a hand-written journal special is that you can keep the information private.  If you want to have an audience and are open to share your information, you can do that, too.  Each entry that you write into a travel journal instantly becomes your reference for the future.  When you completely fill the blank book, you can file it away and read your entries whenever you wish. 

A blog takes more effort than a travel journal.  Your audience may inspire you to keep writing on a regular basis, but because of these people, you may have to work at making writing deadlines.  You can’t always rely on memory.  You may need to take notes, before composing your information on the computer.  Of course, you will always need access to a computer, or the blog won’t survive. When people read your blog and comment on what you’ve written, you will have to make time to respond.  A blog requires a website or a portion of one.  It requires the constant updating of articles, photographs or digital video clips.  Your completed work needs to be labeled and organized, copied and stored.  Your computer data must be protected.      

As someone who keeps a hand-written travel journal, I don’t have the pressure of writing for my readers.  With my travel journal within reach, I fill my pages because I want to write.  I don’t have readers to answer to.  Although it would be flattering to have an audience who reads my blog, there are my personal thoughts, goals and dreams that only I know about.  These are the words that I want to keep in my travel journal and nowhere else. 

I’m keeping this journal for me.                  

Learn more about this author, Arlene Poma.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.