Issue 129: Travel Journaling for the rest of us

A chaotic but heartfelt attempt at becoming a travel journaling person

One of the biggest stressors for me when planning a vacation isn’t what to wear or where to stay — it’s the paper matter. How many books and how many notebooks is it reasonable to pack for a two-week family trip?

For someone whose entire identity rests on optimizing her reading and notetaking systems, the answer feels existential. I want to be prepared for every possible reading mood and every kind of notebook-worthy thought, but I also know that overpacking creates stress of its own. Last year, after a month-long trip, I tried to solve this dilemma once and for all by writing myself a note — a packing manifesto of sorts — which I unearthed this year with great pride. Here’s what I told myself in 2024 (please pay special attention to Tip #5 about books):

Was Tip #5 good advice? Yes, it was.
Was Tip #5 followed? No, it wasn’t.

I brought entirely too many books while one paper copy + a Kindle would have been totally fine. But… when we got stuck at JFK/NYC for 48+ hours on our way back and there were so many unknowns about what we would need to do, I at least knew that I had plenty of reading material to get me through it. So, I mostly stand by my own packing advice AND I have one more item to add to the list: PACK A TRAVEL JOURNAL.

As my notebook keeping practice has intensified (gotten out of control??) over the last year, I had been wondering how I would manage during travel. Should I bring my morning pages journal, my book journal, my reading log notebook, my TBR notebook, my planner?! It felt to me BOTH that I would really need all these while traveling AND that it would be utterly insane to lug all of THAT, especially given that we usually try to pack as light as possible in order to simplify travel.

That’s when I talked to Janet Asante Sullivan and as I was digging through her archives, re-read her post on what has kept her journaling in which she mentioned her Travel Journal:

I started keeping a separate travel journal in 2016. The first trip I documented was to South Africa. Since then, I’ve taken this journal on all my adventures—France, Spain, Indonesia, Mexico, Italy, Amsterdam, my solo caravan trip, Ghana, and several U.S. states. I’ve recently been reading and sharing some of these entries on my blog. This journal is especially dear to me. I’d never throw it out. It's filled with mundaneness, wonder and tells the story behind the hundreds of photos in my camera roll.

The moment I read that, I felt like Elle Woods… THIS is the type of girl that I need to become to be serious! 😂😂😂

But how? So, I issued a desperate plea on Notes and tagged my favorite Substack artist friends.

And …. OMG… did the Substack Travel Journaling Gods deliver?! Below is a summary of the tips I got.¹

✏️ Essential Supplies

Notebook: Start with a passport-sized journal or slim larger notebook that can hold full-size items like maps and museum brochures.

Pens & Pencils:

• Favorite writing pens (Pilot G2s, InkJoy Gels, etc.)

• Colored pens or markers (try matching your destination’s vibe—like blues and yellows for Sardinia)

• Watercolor pencils and a portable water brush for adding color

Glue, Tape, Scissors:

• Glue tape (recommended for ease and mess-free use)

• Washi tape rolled around cardstock for easy transport

• TSA-approved folding scissors (check blade length requirements)

Pouch: or envelope to collect paper ephemera like tickets, receipts, and labels

✍️ Approaches

• Use your journal for a mix of reflections, daily logs, book notes and impressions from your trip

• Incorporate drawings or simple sketches—even minimal ones can be powerful

• Don’t worry about making it look perfect—let it be spontaneous and imperfect

💫 Philosophy & Mindset

• Keep it light: Focus on ease and playfulness, not pressure

• Journal at the end of the day: Let it be a decompression ritual, not a duty

• Limit your materials: Too many tools can become overwhelming

• Don’t overthink it: Even a pen and notebook is enough to start

I felt so grateful to receive so much support and such great tips!!! Here’s how it went.

📓 My materials

• Pouch: I already had this one at home and even though it was a little small, it could fit my pocket-sized grand voyageur | leather journal from paper republic with a single blank notebook insert.

• Pens: One simple blue ball-point pen (and three Muji pens I bought in Berlin)

• Pencils: Watercolor pencils by Derwent in “Sardinia Colors” - Naples Yellow, Sky Blue, Mineral Green and Geranium Lake (Note: how cool are these color labels?!). My colors were perfect for Sardinia but felt wrong in Berlin, which is why I have fewer drawn pages from that portion of the trip. Even thought I agree with the advice to keep a minimal color scheme, next time if I am going to multiple locations, I would do custom palettes for each. I also kept reaching for a dark color, which I didn’t have. So next time I may add a dark grey, black, blue.

• Water brush pen: just fill it up with water, brush over pencil and the pigment transforms. Even though this tool is as simple as it gets, I felt super intimidated by it. I loved doing my swatches but then never used it.

• Double-sided tape + tiny scissors: TSA requirement is that the blade needs to be less than 4 inches from the pivot point. My double-sided tape was fine but next time I will look for Tombow glue tape which is what Carolyn Yoo and Nikki C had recommended but I couldn’t find it locally and didn’t have time to order online before the trip.

🎨 What I did:

I was so excited about this that I made my entire family commit to travel journaling together. My husband and Rumi got their own pouches with similar materials + slightly different colors, which we agreed to share. We all started journaling as soon as we got on our first flight from Memphis to Chicago:

I knew that I would be intimidated by the blank pages so I spent some time decorating the first page of the notebook and just swatching my colors. Sidebar: We ran into Jeff Goldblum at the Chicago Airport and he was THE COOLEST, signed autographs for a long time and even called Rumi to the front of the line (she was the only kid). She felt so proud to hand him her green pencil (She knows him as The Wizard from Wicked) and he told her she had a great name. The experience may have gotten to her head a little bit.

At first I wrote mostly at night about what we had done that day, which restaurants we’d visited in case someone asks for recommendations and the names of beaches I wanted to remember. I told myself that I don’t need to do more than a two-page spread, keeping myself to a low standard made sure I did SOME journaling every day. I also timidly started drawing… I was SO NERVOUS.

By Day 4 I was noticing that even though the heat and the full days were making me too tired to read, I was still really excited to draw. I did this little drawing while sitting under the umbrella at Spiaggia Liscia Ruja and found myself looking out into the water so many times that at some point noticed that I was actually really seeing the place. I had that loopy beachy feeling but I also felt awake to life within me and around me. It felt really… magical.

As the days went by, I wrote down more day recaps, restaurant notes, journaled about reading The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante, wrote down a list of books that I really want to remember to read. I was also trying to draw more. I drew this picture of my kid eating a tomato salad and laughing because she realized she was eating tomatoes while wearing her tomato tshirt.

I think this page is probably my favorite from the whole journal. In addition to the drawing of Rumi, I now see that I have added a note about how obsessed she became with “European Fanta” which — according to Rumi — is far superior to American Fanta. That day is also the day I realized that I was forgetting to take my supplements so I added a make-shift habit tracker AND took a note of getting my feelings hurt for being seated at a “side seat” at a beach bar… wondering if we weren’t beautiful enough to have a main area table. I didn’t say I wasn’t vain.

While in Berlin, I spend many journal pages writing down short story summaries from Aysegul Savas’s new collection, Long Distance. I don’t typically read short stories and wanted to make sure I was keeping notes as I was reading — I didn’t want to close the last page and not remember what I had read early on.

I carried my pouch everywhere we went and I felt really grateful I had it on me when we ended up in a long line to see the Angel of History exhibit at the Bode Museum. It was the last day of the show so a lot of people had shown up to see it and I kept myself occupied while in line.

I drew using my blue ball point pen while in line and kept asking Rumi to help me notice and remember some of the details so we could finish the drawing from our apartment later that day. She remembered the magenta lady and also reminded me that the girl on the left had a yellow purse and a green jacket. However, when she saw the finished colored in version of the drawing she said, “No offense, mom, but I liked it better before you colored it.” Everyone is a critic. The show included Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus which inspired Walter Benjamin, Laurie Anderson and Wim Wenders. Kyle and I both studied critical theory in grad school and bonded early on over our love for the Frankfurt school, so seeing the drawing and Benjamin’s journal notes about it felt incredibly special.

Travel Journaling was an AMAZING experience for me. It was nice to keep an integrated record of my life — travel, logistics, reading, bitching, drawing — all in one place. Because the journal was topical, I felt less inclined to complain (although I did do that too) and more interested in preserving some of those precious moments. I am writing this a little over a week since we left Sardinia and as I am flipping through the pages, I am already amazed how much I wrote down that I am already starting to forget. FANTA!!! Janet Asante Sullivan mentioned how important it is to keep notes of what you see in the world that inspires you… which is NOT how I typically journal… and I really got a good taste for what that can feel like. The whole time I was writing and drawing in my journal, I kept thinking… wow… what if this is how I looked at life back home too?!

Drawing — badly, clumsily — felt shockingly generative for me. It felt engaging but also relaxing. The only way I can think to describe it and maybe someone can tell me if this is actually accurate, but I felt like I was using parts of my brain that typically stay dormant for me. A couple of times upon completing a drawing I felt borderline euphoric, the way I typically feel after a Bikram Yoga class or after some time in an infrared sauna. Endorphins rush?! I don’t know. Tell me. I want more of that.

While in Berlin, we had lunch with a dear friend Kris who is from Bulgaria but now lives in Berlin. Since the last time we saw each other, she has also gotten into drawing and we had a long conversation about how terrifying it is to so badly want to be good at something that is new to you, especially when you are in your 40s and feel generally competent in most areas of your life. But we both encouraged each other to keep following the voices in our head that are telling to keep trying, draw/read/write… because life is long, there is time for many acts but also time for regret should one choose to ignore one’s own creative impulses. I have no serious aspirations related to drawing but I do feel in my bones that creative effort begets more creativity and, in a way, the specific mode of creation is immaterial. What matters is taking time to slow down and pay attention.

From now on, I definitely intend to bring little passport-sized journals and build an archive of travel journals to stand on their own and be used not onl as a safekeep but also as a reference for all the magical places we visit. But I also plan to bring that same looser, freer, playful format into my daily journaling practice. You know how when you are on vacation everything just smells good and tastes delicious and inconveniences feel silly and your threshold for charm is so low… I want more of that energy into my daily life and I truly believe that a more creative journaling practice could be a seriously useful tool in facilitating that.

🤓 Now tell me

• Do you keep a travel journal or some other kind of place-based notebook? What have you learned from it?

• Have you ever tried drawing as a way to slow down and notice more deeply? What was that like for you?

• Do you have a creative journaling practice? If not, what’s stopped you — and what might make it feel more inviting?

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1. I am eternally thankful to Janet Asante Sullivan, Beth Spencer, Carolyn Yoo, Nikki C, Laurel Clayton, Lorrie Tom, Josephine Nirmala, Emilie Marcotte, Elizabeth M. Johnson (she/her), and Dino Corvino for all the tips and ideas on how to make this first experiment fun and manageable! Give them all a follow!