We have written in small notebooks, Moleskine notebooks, and college-ruled notebooks. The travel journal above is 3 sheets of yellowing 8.5вЂі x 11вЂі pieces of paper. There are no particular requirements for what you write in or on. Of course, that does also mean that you have to worry about your device being charged. If you do plan on putting it online as I do there are some advantages to keeping your journal electronically. You can keep a travel journal on paper or you can keep it on your laptop, smartphone or tablet. You can see some online versions of my travel journals on Amateur Traveler.

Take a picture of that historic plaque to help you with details you may want later.ДonвЂ™t worry too much about editing, spelling or grammar.

Who was the most interesting person you saw or talked to?.

What was the name of that guide, site, etc?.

Think about the sights, smells, tastes, and sounds.

Think about what you saw that surprised you.

Try and write something for every day of your trip.

Set aside time in the evening, at breakfast, on the plane, on the train or on car rides to take these facts and write your journal entries.

If you donвЂ™t have time to write a journal entry, just keep a list of your notes in the back of whatever you are using for a journal.

Jot down notes every dayВ that will help you remember the details of the day.I would also suggest you write for yourself. They certainly contain details that would be boring to other people. Sometimes they contain witty prose and humor and sometimes they just contain facts we want to remember. Decide who you are writing this journal for.You can use any notebook or your computer or smartphone. Make sure a journal and pen are on your packing list.If you are going to write a travel journal then I would suggest you: Combined with the photographs we take, these journals help us remember the details of what would otherwise be a faded memory. It sits next to our journal from driving cross country after college in the 1980s. My wife still has the journal from her Spring Break trip to Florida. Travel journals have been important in my family since before we were married. Our travel journals are kept there above out photo albums where theoretically we could grab them in our hurry out the front door should our house ever catch fire. We have a bookshelf in our living room where we keep some of our most cherished possessions. While my wife wrote the words above, our clothes still were covered with the red clay mud of Kauai. We had started what was supposed to be a short hike to a waterfall but had turned into an overland adventure when we started from the wrong parking lot. The above paragraph was written in our travel journal in the safety of our Kauai hotel room on the evening after our misadventure on that beautiful island. All the while we were thinking вЂњIвЂ™m really surprised the guidebook called this an easy family hikeвЂќ. So we traveled on, as the ground got muddier and the trail got steeper, until we were climbing hand over hand, over logs, up steep slopes. But surely, we thought, the view at the end must be spectacular. There were some pretty views, but not much different than weвЂ™d seen from the overviews. The first half-mile was a good bit rockier and muddier than weвЂ™d expected. We were soon thinking this wasnвЂ™t quite what we had expected. We found the trail marking for a one mile hike and set off happily, humming a little tune. Little did we know what we were getting into. After driving to a few lookouts we came to the end of the road and set off on what we thought was an вЂњeasy one mile family hikeвЂќ. DAY 3 (Must be Friday) We got a late start, as more in our party started to adjust to Hawaii time.

Travel journal entries