How to Choose a Travel Journal

One of the great things about traveling is that you can always look back on the memories you create. To make this even easier, why not use a travel journal? You can keep track of events, photos and mementos for years to come. A travel journal can be a regular journal that you find at a gift store or an office supply shop, or it you can find one specifically designed for travel. I recommend the latter because travel journals often come with advice, tips, places for photos and interesting prompts that can make your journaling more productive.

Size
Ideally, a travel journal will be small enough to fit inside your luggage. The most popular sizes are 9X7 because they give you adequate room to write but aren't so bulky that they don't travel well, I don't recommend anything smaller because you'll have trouble fitting all of your thoughts in before the journey is over. Going larger is fine as long as you'll be able to fit it in your baggage.

Binding
Fortunately, some travel journals come with weather-proof binding to protect the contents. Some people prefer spiral-bound journals because they can fold them in half and write more easily when a table and chair aren't available. You can also find zippered travel journals that will keep your itinerary, photos and documents from falling out when you're on the run.

Destination
Believe it or not, you can find travel journals that are specific to your destination! There are journals for Italy, France, Spain, Greece, cruises, hikes, the mountains and more. If you are going someplace interesting, trying conducting a Google search on "travel journals [destination]". This should bring up a healthy list of links so you can find the perfect travel journal for your destination.

Addresses
If you meet interesting people while traveling, you might want to take down their address so you can keep in touch. What better way to do that than with a travel journal that also contains an address book? You can also find journals that have international dialing codes, currency converters, time zone maps, favorite travel destinations and more. Choose one that meets your immediate needs.