Keeping a travel journal is so personal. When you write is just as personal as what you write. Of course, there’s not one right time to write in your travel journal. Everyone tends toward journaling at different times of day based on personality and preference. And each time of day is best for different types of journaling. You might decide to stick to a certain time to journal or to journal throughout the day. Read on to find the time of day that best fits your personality.
Morning
Morning is the time you’re most awake, alert and have all the possibilities of an exciting day of travel ahead of you. This is where the planner personality shines. So much of the joy of traveling is the anticipation. Where you will go that day, what you will do, it’s all been pictures in books or points on an itinerary, but then each morning of your trip promises the adventure of seeing those exciting things for yourself. Get excited!
I like to take this time in the morning to capture some of my excited thoughts and feelings. Asking yourself: what are you most excited about? What do you think the most exciting or most interesting part will be? Or what do you hope the day will bring? Not only will you have these feeling captured, but you’ll also add to the excitement and anticipation of your day. It’s also fun to quickly jot these down and then look back on them later to see how accurate your morning predictions were. Often times what I think I’ll see, and what I actually see are very different and I love looking back on that. It teaches me so much about myself. Which, of course, is one of the big reasons I journal.
Afternoon or Midday
Afternoon is where all the action is. You’re out and about, seeing new things, taking in new sights and having new experiences. It’s a lot! A journal can be a tool to help you process, reflect and pay attention. So I like to use my afternoon journalling time to help me stop for a second and really pay attention, especially to the new things I notice all around me.
There are a few ways to do this. One is to make a quick list. Sit down in a public space and write down what catches your eye. Once when I was in Barcelona, I sat on the beach and wrote down all of the different languages I heard and what was being sold by the beach vendors. When I look back at it now I remember the commotion, the way I felt being immersed in that environment. I definitely wasn’t a serene beach! There was a lot going on and I wanted to capture it in a unique way.
Another great thing to do in the afternoon is to pull out your pens and watercolor set and capture the visual landscape of the place. Don’t be intimidated! This can be done in a lot of ways. You can just capture the colors of a place. Every place has a distinct color palette.
When I was in Ireland I tried to capture all of the different greens I saw. It was hard, but fun. And constantly reminds me about the specific beauty of Ireland and how good it felt to be constantly in a sea of green.
To do this just find a comfortable spot to sit. Get out your journal, watercolor set and pen. And then just sit still for a while and notice what colors are around you, find a similar color on your pallet and put a dot or swatch in your notebook. Find between 8-12 colors. Once they’re together it turns into a beautiful and unique depiction of the space. And it’s so easy! This is a great activity to do with kids. And of course, there are so many other ways you can capture a place with a pen and watercolors. The options are endless and endlessly rewarding and fun.
Evening
Nighttime is the best time to use your journal to reflect on the events of the day. In my first days of travel journaling I would use this time to painstakingly write down everything we did that day, taking up pages in my journal with words that I hardly read when I got back home. They never sparked my imagination or piqued my interest. Now I use the evening as a time of general reflection that includes a lot of different elements.
This could be a time where you gather all of the small mementos you found throughout the day: leaves, colorful business card from the button shop you visited or the receipt from the delicious cafe. Paste them all in there a write a few words, trying to capture the feeling of the day and being at these places.
Or, if you have a shorter amount of time, just gather them all and attach a paperclip to them with the date and put them in your larger pouch to be put in the journal when you’re not so tired!
Another thing I like to do at night is ask myself questions about the day and record a quick response in my journal. So many new things happen in a day in a new place and I like to use the nighttime to capture and reflect on these feelings. I ask myself these questions:
- What did you do?
- What did you see?
- How did you feel?
Try to think back on the day and think of three things that were really amazing or different, things that really caught your attention. I like to write these things down and call them my ‘3 Amazing Things’ I’ve found that when I do that, those things stay with me a long time and when I turn back to old journals and read the three amazing things, I can more vividly recall the day and that’s a big reason I write in my journal in the first place!
Using a travel journal is about bringing attention and mindfulness to your travel experience. In that way, every time of day is a good time for journaling. I would encourage you to try journaling throughout the day and see what feels right for you. The amount of time or pages you fill doesn’t matter. It’s the doing of it that matters, showing up. Any time of day. Good luck!