Traveler’s Notebook Inspiration: Travel Journal

The Traveler’s Notebook is made for traveling, of course! It’s right in the name, and the notebook is designed to fit travel essentials like long, skinny plane tickets and a passport. But it’s the accessories and customizability of the notebook that make it a really excellent travel companion, and the features that are most helpful for travel may not be obvious at a glance.

We’ve written before about keeping a travel journal, and that post is an excellent place to start for ideas about how to use a travel journal and what to write about as you go. Here we’ll look at ways to use the Traveler’s Notebook while traveling, and at accessories that can help you stay organized on your trip.

Travel Planner

While you’re on the road, the Traveler’s Notebook is a great organizing tool. Use it as your planner, to-do list, and itinerary to help you keep track of your plans.

Calendar inserts are very helpful for this purpose. Undated fill-in calendars can be especially useful, since most trips cover a short period of time. You can use the same weekly or monthly calendar insert for several trips, simply filling in the dates you need and then starting a new calendar page on your next trip. 

You can also keep a lined or grid insert to write down to-do lists, addresses, and information about your transportation and accommodations.

Wallet

With a few accessories, you can turn your Traveler’s Notebook into a handy wallet for traveling, too. Use a zipper pouch and card file to hold cards, coins, and bills—that way you have everything in one place, and you don’t need to empty out your regular wallet. You can even tuck your passport into the zipper pouch for easy access at an airport or station.

“Stuff” Organizer

Travel usually involves more loose papers than everyday life: tickets, visas, maps, postcards, stamps, letter paper, and on and on. Fortunately, it’s easy to add pockets of every shape and size to your notebook to hold whatever you’ll be carrying.

Pocket stickers can be stuck onto the inside of your notebook cover to hold loose items of different sizes, and a folder insert is great for larger papers like maps and plane tickets. A card file is perfect for holding smaller items like museum tickets, bus passes, and stamps. A zipper pouch lets you carry all your journaling and writing tools, as well as small loose papers and other odds and ends.

Daily Journal

Beyond organizing, of course, the Traveler’s Notebook is also an excellent journal! Lined and grid inserts are great for daily journaling about where you’ve gone, what you’ve seen, and how you feel. 

The Traveler’s Company makes notebook inserts of different lengths: full-size inserts of 64 pages and half-size Short Trip inserts of 32 pages. If you like to dedicate one single insert to your trip, the different page counts can help you adjust your notebook to match the length of your trip.

Sketchbook

Watercolor paper, sketch paper, and kraft paper inserts are all great options to add to your journal if you like to sketch or paint on your travels. They offer a variety of papers to suit your favorite medium. You can even try their accordion fold insert to make a special accordion book on your trip.

Scrapbook or Memory Book

As you travel, your journal will become a memory book filled with notes and recollections from your trip. When you return home, you can continue to fill in the journal by adding in ephemera you’ve collected on the trip and printing small photos to paste into the pages. Collect your finished travel journals in a refill binder to create an album of your travels.

Other Useful Accessories

The Traveler’s Company makes plenty of other useful accessories with travel in mind. We like the plastic sheet, which gives you a firm surface to write on when you’re using your journal on the go. The brass clip is also helpful for keeping your notebook open when you’re writing in cramped spaces like a train or plane, and it helps you find your place quickly when your notebook is closed.

Their index clips are especially helpful when you’re using multiple inserts at once, such as a calendar insert for your itinerary, a lined insert for your journal, and a blank insert for sketching. These page tabs let you find your page easily (or let you mark multiple pages in the same insert).

And a pen loop gives you easy access to your favorite writing tool so you don’t have to go digging around in your bag.

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Whether you want to use your travel journal for writing about your trip, sketching what you see, staying on top of your schedule, collecting ephemera, or all of the above, you can customize the Traveler’s Notebook to suit your style. You can carry several inserts in your notebook for different purposes (check out our blog post on how to add multiple inserts.) Mix and match ideas from the list above to make the Traveler’s Notebook the perfect travel companion for you! How do you like to travel with your notebook?