The Pressures of Travel Journaling

I have fallen victim one too many times to the aesthetically pleasing and perfectly “messy” travel journals of Pinterest. They are always full of beautiful photos, lovely handwriting, and gorgeous watercolors of foreign vistas. Every time I plan a new trip, I daydream about all the memories I’ll record in my journal and all the mementos I’ll perfectly washi tape inside. And while I think I will always appreciate the photo-worthy spreads of travel bloggers, I don’t think it will be the right take for me anytime soon. We place so much pressure on ourselves to be perfect in all aspects of our lives whether it be with school, work, social life, appearance, or whatever. And in our never ending quest for perfection we forget to be in the moment and enjoy the aspects of life happening right before our eyes. Nothing in life is perfect and the culmination of both the beautiful and the messy bits make us human. You probably shouldn’t ignore the future completely, but maybe taking time away from planning and fixing is necessary for our sanity. 

Traveling is really important to me and I want to explore as much of the world as possible in the limited time that I have. Connected to this, I have a strong desire to document as much as I possibly can through writing, photos, or collected items. However, when I am abroad I’m usually shoving as many things into one day as humanly possible and by the time I’m back in my hotel room I can’t imagine doing more than brushing my teeth and throwing myself into bed. I’ll often push off journaling because I want whatever I write to be interesting and, shocker, to look nice. I want my travel journal to be something I’m excited to look back on years from now, but that’s not possible if I don’t even keep one while I’m actually abroad. I need to push self-doubt aside and just put onto paper whatever I please in the moment. A travel journal is your own personal keeper of memories; it is something that keeps safe all of the things you find important and all of the amazing places you’ve had the opportunity to visit. If you enjoy taking time to sketch or watercolor, by all means, do it! But if it’s something that feels stressful and overly time-consuming to you, don’t feel obligated to include drawings in your journal. I once traveled to San Francisco with a small bag of artist’s markers to color in sketches while I was there. I didn’t use them a single time and had to deal with getting pulled aside by airport security due to concerns that I had a dozen knives concealed in a pencil pouch. Most recently in Iceland, I only wrote a handful of entries in the artsy whale journal I had purchased for the trip. I wanted whatever I put inside to be coherent and memorable, but I mostly ended up using a tiny journal the size of my palm to scribble notes and names and diagrams in. I find this jumble of thoughts far more valuable than the mostly empty journal I tried to make perfect. I want to rework my priorities for travel journaling the next time I go abroad (because hopefully there are a lot of next times). Instead of feeling disappointed in myself for not writing as much as I might’ve liked, I would prefer to re-evaluate how to incorporate the things that do work for me. I think just having a single notebook full of blank pages that I can write full entries in or a messy, disjointed stream of consciousness will serve me well. I can tape in receipts or wrappers or whatever else interests me at the moment. I think I’ll save the aesthetics for reflection at home when I inevitably print out dozens of my photos and scrapbook them. 

The point I’m trying to get at is that you need to do what makes you happy. Don’t detract from the amazing experience of exploring a foreign locale by worrying about stuffing bag upon bag of paints and washi tape into your already overflowing backpack if that isn’t your jam. It’s perfectly okay to just scribble down the names of your favorite restaurants on some scraps of paper or collect all of your favorite memories in the knock-off Moleskin you got via Amazon Prime. Keep all of your gloriously imperfect thoughts in whatever way you see fit. 

Link to my travel journal pinterest board: https://pin.it/np3ar4rm7xsy2o