25 Things To Include In Your Travel Journal
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I make a lot of travel journals, in fact, making books is my job and I also fill a lot of travel journals. And for many of us, part of the fun of traveling is collecting memories to put in a travel journal when we get home, and then reliving the experience over and over again. But do you ever struggle to know what to put into your journal or scrapbook? In case you do, I’ve made a list of ideas for items you might like to include:
1. Matchbooks
2. Napkins
3. Postcards
4. Travel tickets (plane, train, bus & metro)
5. Photographs (duh – I know)
6. Tourist maps & brochures
7. Paper bags
8. Flat sea shells & sea glass
9. Candy wrappers
10. Business cards
11. Museum, art gallery, movie & theatre tickets
12. Menus from restaurants and cafes
13. Flattened bottle caps
14. A little watercolor painting of something you saw
15. Luggage tags
16. Drawing or sketch
17. Wine bottle label
18. Journal entry – write down what you did, how you felt and what you saw
19. Sand from the beach (place in a small plastic or glassine bag)
20. Money (small coins and denominations of foreign currency)
21. Rubbings of interesting textures (graves, paving stones & metal grates)
22. Receipts
23. Dried flowers, leaves & herbs
24. Tags from clothes & souvenirs
25. Coasters & beer mats
Please share your ideas in the comments – I’d love to know what else you have or would include in a travel scrapbook.
March 25, 2014 @ 5:10 pm
I kept an itinerary and log of each day’s activities when I went to Hawaii. It was such a great way to recall everything we did on our adventures and helped me create a very thorough scrapbook when the photos were developed.
March 29, 2014 @ 4:20 am
What I learned that day. I see no reason to keep anything else.
March 29, 2016 @ 5:17 pm
Then why are you looking at a Pin page on journals?
November 15, 2014 @ 4:28 pm
I used to keep everything from our travels – ticket stubs, brochures, etc. – but it got to be too much. If I can incorporate them into some kind of art project (like a scrapbook or collaged Christmas ornament), I might keep some. I continue to document what we do, see, where we stay, and who we’re with in a journal (and blog about the experience too) because I’ve found that I want to recall those easy-to-forget details later on, whether in conversation or while planning a return trip.
January 25, 2015 @ 9:06 pm
WhyFlattened bottle caps???
April 29, 2015 @ 2:44 pm
Depending on where you are, there are some really neat ones. I have caps from all over Europe, South America, obscure micro-breweries in the US, and a couple of caps from the Middle East. They are going on my outdoor table top and will be lacquered over to make a level surface.
February 9, 2015 @ 2:05 am
I smash maps into my journals with the places we stayed or visited starred with a different colored pen.
March 24, 2015 @ 6:19 pm
This is so boss! I’m going to Burma, and hope to travel the rest of the globe in years to come. I want to start a travel journal, and add on each time I go somewhere different. 🙂 I’m so excited! These are great ideas, thank you! :):)
April 8, 2015 @ 12:39 pm
I am currently collecting seashells and rocks to make jewelry and I can’t wait to make them and think of the stories that go along with them. I recently got a travel journal that has fun activities like finding random objects of specific colors and smudging the bottom of your drinking glass on the paper to remember a cup of tea or glass of wine. It’s great to have unique items to remember where you’ve been!
April 13, 2015 @ 11:46 am
Wow – smudging a drinking glass or cup – genius idea!
May 7, 2015 @ 11:07 am
I have flattened pennies (the penny plus .50 machines) on a ring on the wire hinge.
August 14, 2015 @ 12:20 pm
Hi. I was intrigued about the travel journal abour smudging coffee because it sounded great. If anyone else’s interested, I found the title: I Was Here: A Travel Journal for the Curious Minded by Kate Pocrass (http://www.amazon.com/Was-Here-Travel-Journal-Curious/dp/0811877701)
Also to the list I would add maps, stamps, a list of all foods tried at restaurants (I sometimes go back home and find recipes and cook for the whole family so they get a taste), pictures of all the food, pictures of the menus, all and any entrance tickets, brochures to museums, tours, archealogical sites, etc..
September 14, 2015 @ 11:40 am
I saw something on another blog, called a food passport. She drew it into her journal before the trip and had restaurants she wanted to try, so that she wouldn’t forget to go! Then she checked them off with room to write about them. I thought that was a cute idea.
August 30, 2015 @ 5:52 pm
Might I just suggest that you check customs before you travel. I would hate to fill my treasured journal with flowers/seeds and sand only for it to be confiscated at the airport. Perhaps make them easily removed just in case.
September 14, 2015 @ 11:40 am
I thought the same thing!
September 10, 2015 @ 4:45 am
I pick up a postcard for each day in a place I’m staying and write a journal entry on the back, string them together at the end and voila – travel journal for a specific trip. Depending on how you bind it you can add a pocket at the front for train, museum,show tickets, menus etc.
I also have a lantern on my kitchen table for a big candle. Everywhere I go I pick up a couple of pebbles to pop into it instead of the generic glass stones – I only stater this this year so it now has volcanic stones from Iceland, golden ones from Mount Rainier in Seattle and deeper crown ones from Croagh Patrick in Ireland. have to pick up some from Turkey next week!
For photography I have a pig pin board with a map on the world…each location I’ve been to has a pin in it accompanied by one photo – there’s a tonne of other photos around the place of the travels from the college year out with my best friends to solo travels.
I l9ove to keep the travel diaries as I go and to have them to take out every now and then but I love even more to have the reminders of travel around me everyday – has me planning the next adventure! 😉
June 27, 2016 @ 1:30 am
Recipts—-> how about credit card statement that lists all trip-related transactions?
July 5, 2016 @ 10:38 pm
Awesome idea!
July 13, 2016 @ 7:24 pm
Another thing I collect is recipes – this works if your living situation exposes you to people of different cultures. It’s cool to share and swap recipes, along with stories!
August 24, 2016 @ 1:43 pm
I love collecting recipes and cookbooks too!
July 27, 2016 @ 5:56 am
Taking notes for all of this! 🙂 Getting excited for our trip to Seoul this September! 😀
Thank you & God Bless!
JM Kayne | http://www.iamjmkayne.com
August 24, 2016 @ 1:42 pm
Have a fun trip!
May 9, 2017 @ 10:33 pm
These are all great ideas! Question, do you make one big journal and add to it after each trip? Or do you make smaller individual ones for each trip?
June 14, 2017 @ 10:04 am
i personally have one big journal because i like being able to look back through my various adventures in chronological order
June 14, 2017 @ 8:47 pm
Oh okay, awesome thank you!
June 12, 2017 @ 5:02 am
Just made my very first leather Field Notes Midori in preparation to my trip to Seoul, Manila and Saigon. I plan to adorn the pages with stamps and and snippets of or miniature traditional costumes.
July 4, 2017 @ 9:20 am
Wonderful ideas in the blog and comments. Thank You! I am excited to get started.
July 19, 2017 @ 11:35 am
I always struggle to keep a travel journal. I try to write in it and collect things but always forget or get too tired at the end of the day. I love looking back on them though when I do manage to keep one! Good ideas for things to include!
September 25, 2017 @ 2:01 pm
I’ve always been one to come home, print my photos and then make a mini scrapbook album of my travels. well… that is taknig me too long! I am 2.5 trips behind! LOL. So, I am trying out travel journaling next week while in CA. I want to come home with a finished book (or 98% finish..may need a few finishing touches once home). I am so excited to try. I’ve been making my little travel kit this week. I really like your list and have added them to my “notes” on my phone! Another idea I had was to take a cork from Napa to create a “charm” for the tie that will close my journal.
Thanks again for the great list!
October 31, 2017 @ 12:21 pm
I cover the pages with folded maps. When opened, they have photos with arrows to the place where they were taken plus a little tab with info. Also ticket stubs, etc., anything small enough to fit.
April 27, 2018 @ 7:33 am
Last year I went to France with my sister, and what started out as emails to my partner to touch base, ended up becoming fairly fun and entertaining email blogs to a few family and friends every couple of days. I have just finished putting those emails home, with attached pictures, into a bound book. While it doesn’t cover everything we did, and not all of the monumental things I really enjoyed, it was a good snapshot of our holiday and is filed with great memories.
April 30, 2018 @ 10:59 pm
I love to collect business cards of every store I shop at on my trip as well as every restaurant we eat at. I don’t make a lot of travel journal scrapbooks. But I do take these cards and glue them in the back of my snap fish journals. It makes a great way for my friends to figure out where to go when they decide they want to imitate or simulate our trips. And it helps us when we go back to remember our favorites.
August 29, 2018 @ 6:09 pm
I’m planning on a Caribbean cruise next year and am going to focus mostly on pictures and postcards as my souvenirs, which will also make it into my travel journal that I’m prepping now. Except for a section in my official travel journal dedicated to writings from my travel companions, it will mostly reside safely in my suitcase while I note the day’s happenings and write lists and journal entries in a cheap notebook. After I return home I will arrange all the information from my cheap notebook and the pictures in my official journal.
August 29, 2018 @ 7:34 pm
going on a Baltic cruise soon. I’m decorating a blank journal ahead of time with various washi tapes, rubber stamped images and different papers glued on the pages. I’ll be taking pens, washi tapes, and a Fuji Instax mini 8 camera for those fun kooky photos to make my journal as we travel. I’ll be more likely to finish it if it is prepared in advance. I plan to purchase postcards as others have mentioned to supplement the hand made journal. Happy travels to all ?
March 14, 2019 @ 8:36 pm
i would add the names and addresses of restaurants/cafes you enjoyed so you can recommend them to friends. Instead of – gosh, I can’t remember the name but it was on that street down from the train station type thing. You can say – Joes’ Cafe on Noname Street 2 blocks east of the train station. I also keep a list of places I won’t go back to and would definitely not recommend to friends.