Travel Journals

Stack of travel journals in my home studio

Good morning, and happy Sunday!

Today is beginning in a swirl of snow flurries, with lights twinkling through the speckled haze of a blue dawn.  I love winter days like this--witnessing the landscape transform into an ethereal, shimmering wonder through nature’s sweeping hand inspires and captivates me.  This specific kind of weather calls me inward.  In response I’ve been diving into a lot of writing and sketching this past week!  So, let’s start the coffee, light a candle, nestle beneath the warmth of a favorite blanket, and settle into the start of this day.

What is a journal?  To me, it’s a tool for expression that breaks through resistance.  The kind of resistance we experience when launching into a big dream or idea.  Through journaling, we can be vulnerable, bold, imaginative, and boundless.  Honesty and clarity emerge with the practice of writing our stories.  Through this act of reflection, a kind of revelation unfolds and we learn more about ourselves, on a deeper level.  We become more familiar with what we truly want, and free to openly exercise our voice.

Journaling has become the foundation of every project I start, whether it’s planning a trip, a painting, a design for the stage, or organization of the day ahead.  With travel journaling specifically, it’s a fantastic method to preserve moments and trigger memories long after a trip has concluded.  In travel, our lives become accelerated--we experience an immense amount of things, and it can be a lot to process!  The practice of keeping a journal has given me a way to sort through the overwhelming mental stimulus of being perpetually fascinated and energetically engaged.  It’s a kind of sorting process that allows the acceleration to slow down, be digested, assimilated, synthesized, and fully appreciated.  Writing in a journal also helps fill the duration of long train rides, flights, and periods of transition.  

Creatively, journaling is a form of planting seeds.  I incorporate sketches, photos, quotes, and resources into the writing of my journals for projects.  This gives me a way to archive the process, which shows the journey of every creation and reveals the “why” that motivates it.  It’s also a great way to preserve how something was achieved, and tells the story from concept to manifestation.  Creative journaling chronicles the progress of our thoughts, expressions, emotions, ideas, and inspiration.  It loosens the reins around our own creative potential, and opens space for new vision.  

In a time where we are all at home more and travel is restricted, I’ve become focused on what I want to learn.  I’ve been reading A LOT, and gathering inspiration.  Allowing this to flow across the pages of my sketchbooks and journals is laying the foundation for future adventures.  

One of the things I’ve been focused on is learning how to make really awesome, solid hand-made journals.  I’m playing with designs for both the home space and on the road, experimenting with different sizes, styles, and methods of binding.  My fingertips are pretty sore from sewing pages, but other than that, I’m really enjoying this!  I’ve been working with a variety of handmade papers, as well as woven linen and silk for the content pages.  The stitch I’m having the most success with is called a sewn butterfly, and depending on the thickness of the pages, I’m working with either cotton thread or waxed linen cord.  Covers are a whole new world of experimenting.  I want these to be sustainable, durable, and the kind of thing that you look forward to writing in.  There is an abundance of materials available:  imitation leathers, floral-pressed paper, marbled paper, printed bookcloth, silk moiré… Eventually, I would love to be able to create high quality journals for art, travel, goal-setting, meditation, music--dream journals would be really fun, as well!  Soon, I hope to have different styles available in our travel shop, and through our Apostrophe Soul Etsy Shop.  I’m looking forward to sharing the progress as I learn.

Revisiting my travel journals has been an adventure in itself!  Just looking at where the Grumpy Gnome and I started back in autumn of 2010, to where we were on our most recent international trip in December of 2019--we have learned so much through our experiences.   My journals for travel tend to be a combination of resources and planning intermixed with reflections and ideas.  They are my lifeline on every trip I create.  

Here are a few excerpts from my travel journals:

My Travel Journals

From international trips across Europe…

From Poland

Sketch of Da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine; calendar planning for the trip itinerary.

The Cat Cafe!

I wrote about my fun and spontaneous experience visiting the Cat Cafe in Krakow, Poland.

Plotting the transitions...

Much of my journal content while travelling is writing and revising routes, figuring out the stops involved in making it from one place to the next.

'Let the Journey Evolve You'

One of my favorite mantras in preparing for a journey of any measure!

From Italy

I was teaching myself as much Italian as I could retain in preparation for this trip, and wrote out the calendar in the language to become more familiar.

Languages

I always try to write out the basic, conversational, practical words and phrases for communicating across borders. It’s really helpful to have this on hand!

Travel Advice...

A lovely woman named Teresa was sitting next to me on our flight back from Amsterdam. She had lived and worked in the US for years, but grew up in a small village near Krakow, Poland. She and I talked about the beauty, history, and traditions of her home country, and she took it upon herself to write an entire itinerary for our next trip in my journal!

From Austria

I wrote about our first night in the Christkindl Markt of Salzburg, Austria—and the experience of ordering glubwein in German for the first time. It was AMAZINGLY good!

Itineraries

I like to print, cut, and glue key travel information about our flight, train route, and accommodations in my travel journals. It’s a very useful backup for critical information, as sometimes the internet isn’t available, or the other hardcopy gets lost. This also helps me stay organized, and plan out our time in each place we stay.

The Prague Quadrennial

My reflections on an incredible experience from a blue rowboat crossing the Vltava River in Prague, during a college trip.

Exhibits and Interactions

A sketch I drew in an exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial, inspired by my trip in the blue rowboat on the Vltava River.

Transportation

Notes on how to navigate the train and bus routes are essential, especially in places where those networks are quite dense and complex.

Sight Seeing

I like to map out different sites and places of interest, gather and organize the information on how to get there—this gives me something to go on once I’ve reached my destination, and allows for flexibility.

The Highlands of Scotland

Here, I recounted one of the best and most exciting nights we’ve experienced on our travels. We stayed in a castle north of Inverness, and walked to a remote pub through the forest on a dark, starlit Friday night.

Getting Lost...

Here, I wrote about a long, adventurous, broken night of traveling where we hopped on and off trains late into the night, trying to make it from Northern Wales to Southwest England.

Avebury, England

We reached a mystical destination in this travel memory! These are my reflections from our first night in Avebury, England, walking through mist and rain on a rural road, passing grazing cows and ancient standing stones.

The Paris Catacombs

These were inscriptions we found throughout our tour of the Paris Catacombs. I copied these into my journal in near-darkness, as a little boy walking ahead of us sang haunting songs in French.

My home writing space

Max is king of the home studio. At least, he believes it—he tries to steal my coffee, and has a habit of climbing onto the pages of my books as I attempt to write.

Reviewing these memories ignites the drive within me to create new experiences, plan future trips, and learn more about our vast and wondrous world.  It gives me hope, helping me to see this time as an opportunity. In this realization, I am never “stuck.”  I hope that this inspires you to craft your own adventures, as well.  Remember—it’s your journal.  Your story.  Be as weird and wild as you want.

Wishing you all the best in the week ahead!

--Jessie :)

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Resources for Journal Making

New discoveries!

The Essential Guide to Making Handmade Books, by Gabrielle Fox. 

This is a fantastic book The Grumpy Gnome found on his thrifting adventures.  It’s what I’ve  been following to learn different methods of stitching pages. 

Hollander’s

https://hollanders.com/

This is an excellent website for book binding supplies!  Hollander’s is an online store with an overwhelmingly awesome catalogue of high-quality materials.  

US Artquest

https://usartquest.com/

A wonderful store that specializes in handmade paper.   I found US Artquest through an online search, and decided to take a day trip to check it out.  I was amazed by what they had!  Hundreds of varieties of high-quality paper for anything you can imagine.  The staff was very knowledgeable, helpful, and enthusiastic, and I look forward to returning! 

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