ON THE GO TRAVEL JOURNAL

We just got back from our roadtrip up north and today I thought I'd share my travel journal how-to with you. I prefer to do a quick and easy travel journal while on vacation, and then use my notes to do the actual documenting when I get home. Whether you document your trip in a minialbum, on pocket pages, on layouts or in a traveler's notebook it's great to have a place to scribble things down and not have to worry about it looking perfect. Here is how I do it!

PUT A KIT TOGETHER

Pack a small documenting kit, with essentials such as a notebook, scissors, a gluestick, pen, coloring pencils and a date stamp. I love this clever tin case with two-toned pencils! That little globe is a sharpener.

WHILE ON THE GO

The two most important things while out and about is:

1) CHECK IN  to Facebook! When at museums, a restaurant or even just a rest stop, check in. It's super quick to do and gives you checkpoints along the way to go back to when you sit down to do your notes later.

2) Pick up duplicates of every free booklet, map or info sheet you come across. Take everything! 

GETTING IT ALL ON PAPER

It's a good idea to have a formula when documenting your trip. When you get home it's easier to find the info you need, and it also minimizes the obstacle of sitting down to do your notes after a long day of seightseeing and travelling. My formula looks like this:

• Pictures on the left, writing on the right
• Day of the week plus a date stamp
• Borders, titles, arrows
• The day's happenings listed with the time and a short descriptive sentence.

First I do my writing, looking up the times of my facebook check-ins. I then flip through the papers I've collected during the day and cut out anything that helps me tell the story of the day. In the spread above I found a photo of the café we ate at and a small map where I marked out our walk. On the next page I adhered an add for the restaurant we had lunch at and a text with facts about the lookout tower we visited.

On our third day we visited an amusement park. I cut out part of the park map to mark out the water slides I went down. This is why it's a good idea to take two of everything. Cut one up, stick one in your album! (This is also where I had to document the fact that I had accidentaly packed my daughter's bathing suit instead of my own and had to go panic shopping for a new one.)

On day four we took a guided tour of the very old copper mine in Falun. On the left side I added pictures from the mine and the museum, but also two of the old mine legends the guide told us about. (And also, mishap number two. As we tried to check into our second rented cabin we discovered I had booked the wrong month! Luckily a relative let us use her apartment for the remaining two days of our vacation.)

The last two days went on the same spread since our plans changed because of the booking mishap. We met up with family and friends, so there weren't many clippings to add. I found a map that covered all the towns we visitied on our roadtrip, so I wrote in the dates for each visit.

I will be adding all this info plus the photos I took to our Project Life album. I will post the album pages here on the blog as soon as I can.

/Magdalena