I am travel journal OBSESSED!
The problem is that whether I’m looking for something to write about for myself or for my kids, I don’t always know WHAT to write about.
See why it’s important to keep travel journals.
This has been an issue since I had my very first journal back in 1997. Wow. 1997.
Journaling NYC
It was my first trip to New York City. A bucket list trip for me for sure. I even made little business-sized cards to give to my friends to let them know I was going.
I bought a cheap 5×7 spiral notebook at some store, wrote the dates of the travel, wrote the address to things I wanted to do and called that part done. While in New York I wrote down signs I saw in the subway, the number of our taxi drivers’ licences, phone numbers. Anything I could think of to write down, I wrote down.
Journaling Bologna
Years later I sat a train station at Bologna. We were waiting, yet again, for a late train. There was a dog peeing on the ground. I thought of the quote “travel is only fun in retrospect” and then thought it was time I jotted down some impressions. However, I was out of ideas. Instead, I wrote some h
I’ve missed lots of opportunities to capture things I never wanted to forget because I couldn’t quite figure out what to write down.
Helping others come up with prompts
Back in 2013 I had a family travel blog. I wrote about our travels and hoped in encourage other families to travel and travel journal.
I created a list of questions to ask yourself, your children, and your family that could be used for prompts in your favorite blank journal or as a conversation starter during quiet times. I published these questions on my site. A few weeks later a travel blogging friend wrote about her family’s experiences in Italy. I commented to her that the post was so insightful. I was impressed. Imagine my shock when I found out that she used the questions I had on my prompts as a starting point.
Awesome.
What now?
Earlier today I was hanging out in one of the family travel FB groups I’m part of and someone asked about travel journals. I found my original questions from my old site and sent them to her.
I haven’t blogged on that site since 2014. If you’re familiar with what happens when you have a website that you don’t keep active it’s not pretty. Hackers and spammers have taken it over and it’s not a fun place to be. Maybe one day I’ll fix it up, but today’s not the day.
However, I hate to see these prompts go to waste. So, I took sometime to reformat them and make them available on this site.
This means a free download for you!
Click on “download” below and the .pdf should open in a new tab. Maybe this one. Print it out, tuck it inside your favorite journal or notebook, and don’t be stuck thinking of what to write about the next time you’re ready to fill some blank pages.
