Love to travel but need some inspiration to light your fire? Enter, the Bullet Journal Bucket List. A visual, concrete and beautiful list that will hold all your travel dreams.
I love using the bucket list layout in my bullet journal to plan the future trips I want to go on. It serves as a constant, beautiful reminder of the places I want to go. And when I get wanderlust I can go back and look at it reminding myself of my travel plans and goals. I promise, after I stared doing this and looked at it daily, I was able to save quicker and go on more trips because the goal was always at the top of my mind. Best part, its totally unique to you. Here are 7 steps to create a unique bullet journal travel bucket list to inspire your next trip.
1. Gather Inspiration
There is so much good bullet journal inspiration online. People are so creative, I love it. Going on Pinterest for inspiration is my weakness. But I have to be careful, because I always spend longer on there than I intend. It’s just so fun looking at what other people are creating.
For your bucket list, just gather general inspiration of what you like, what calls to you. Do you like spreads with lots of color? Lots of text? Beautiful hand-lettered
You may already have an idea of what you like and what you want. If so, you can totally skip this step. But I would encourage you to go and a new inspiration every once in a while, it will infuse new ideas into your spreads. You might surprise yourself!
2. Create a Plan
I’m not a planner by nature. I like to jump in with both feet and just figure it out! When I first started getting into journaling and would look on Pinterest for inspiration, I always found beautiful, thoughtful spreads and thought, ‘I could never make anything that great looking!’ Then I read more about bullet journaling and realized the importance of planning your spreads. Something clicked in my head and after that, I was making . That’s something I really love about bullet journaling, it’s helped teach me the beauty of a planning. And good planning often turns into good spreads. Any good bullet journal spread takes a bi
Using Your Inspiration
Once you’ve gathered your inspiration, it’s time to plan your own spread. Look at your inspirations. What do they have that you want to include in your spread?
Questions to Ask Yourself
To better plan your spread, ask yourself these questions to get your creativity flowing.
- What will it look like?
- What will the title look like?
- Will it have doodles or text, or both?
- What supplies will you use?
Just think generally about this at this beginning stage. Will you use stickers instead of doodles? will you color your banner with colored pencils? Will it just be pen and ink? Take a second to think about this, but remember, you can always change your mind later. So don’t worry!
Checking Things Off
Make sure you also include a way to check thins off your bucket list. This is important to seeing your goals realized. Is it a series of boxes or a special color the country name gets highlighted? Be creative and make sure you have some way of checking things off.
When you’re done with this step, you should have a general idea of the layout of your spread. Maybe you want to jot it down on a piece of scratch paper, sketch it into your journal or just keep it in your head. Great job, onto the next step!
3. Gather your Supplies
Any great travel bullet journal spread starts with good supplies. Of course, you need your notebook. Since you’ve already made your plan, you should have a good idea of the supplies you are going to use. Gather your pens, watercolors, stickers and whatever else you plan on using. I always err on the side of more is better and bring more than I need. Because when I get in the middle of creating my spread and inspiration strikes and I have a brilliant idea to add a watercolor border that I hadn’t planned on, I want to know I have all my supplies.
4. Create Your Title
Okay, now you have your plan and your supplies, it’s time to start creating! The place I like to start is with the title. Once I have that down, the spread really starts to come together. I like to name my list something like: Travel Bucket List or Travel Bucket List 2019 That’s the easy part. The fun part is deciding what it looks like.
Title Ideas
Banner
A bullet journal staple, the banner gives a really nice, clean, bold feeling to your spread. You can add the classic, or do a variation on the banner. LIke making a circular border with lines or doodles around your title. Get creative with it!
Creative Text
This is a great time to experiment with some hand lettering. Some of my favorite spread titles combine two forms of lettering: cursive and block type, over each other in different colors or next to each other. It’s a fun and easy way to infuse your spread with some fun and personality.
5. Add Your Bucket List Content
This is the exciting part. This is where you really put your hopes and dreams into reality. Out of your head and into the real world. Yes! Take time with this part. Really enjoy it. Think about each place. The beauty of it. What you might find there. The adventures you’ll have. Revel in it. And remember, to make it special. Whatever that means for your spread, special colors or hand lettering. Make it unique to you.
6. Add Color and Design Details
Based on your plan, now its time to add color and design detail. I like to add a lot of color to my bucket list spreads, to make the places vivid in my mind. Sometimes I will do a bit of research into the flag color of the country and add those colors by the name of the place. Have fun with this step!
7. Add The Finishing Touches
Now you have you spread almost done. Now it’s time for the finishing touches. Go back to your inspiration if you’d like. Ask yourself: what does this need? Is it done? No one can answer that question but you. Add color or washi tape or more doodles if needed, till you decide that its done. When it’s done, step back and revel in your masterpiece.
There are so many ways to create a bucket list for your travel bullet journal. The great thing about travel journals is the freedom to add whatever is unique to you and your experience. And the great thing about bullet journals is that the layouts and spreads lend themselves to that creative freedom and create some order in your journal. Remember, take your time. This is about making your travel bullet journal beautiful but more importantly, it’s about setting the intention of your dreams. While you’re making the bucket list, disconnect from everything else and really focus on the task, make it real for yourself. Dream your dreams into reality. Good luck!