Travelling has always had the virtual potential to be a wildly fulfilling affair. The finer side of travelling is that it exposes you to various new cultures. In addition to different perspectives and unique experiences to how to write travel diaries. The more you travel, the more you feel the zeal to step out of your solidarity comfort zone, the more you get to learn about yourself and the world around you actively.
One of the most trending types of diaries is a travel journal. By having any size of a travel diary, you could keep all these new experiences, connections and knowledge in a place where you can quickly return to with the purpose solely being to reflect on them.
Now, What are Travel Diaries?
Travel diaries and journals are personal documentaries or, as I fondly call them, “memories pack”. This “memories pack” or diaries is where your write-ups about vacations, trips, journeys and cruises you have embarked on in the past or presently enjoying or the ones you intend to embark on is fully and passionately recorded alongside what you learned during and the experiences you had.
It is a beautiful collection of emotions, adventures, stories, knowledge, memories and discovery. There is no judgment about your budget, and it does not matter where you are going or who travels with you. Whether the diary is an online or an offline trip journal, it can always be of use and come in anywhere and every time you have the opportunity to pen down tiny reminder notes of how you were feeling at that moment.
So it would be best if you stopped wondering why to write a journal when travelling. There is no better time to document your experiences than like the present. Also, there are so many benefits of keeping a journal when travelling, aside from memory keeping. And now this is how to write your travel diary or journal;
Start Writing from the First Plans Before the Trip:
Your travel diary can begin before your trip has even started. Use your trip journal to start planning the things you would want to do. It could be anything from a hike you want to go on, a fabulous restaurant or meal joint you are enthusiastic about visiting to satisfy your culinary curiosity or even different sights you would like to see. Write down anything that is on your travel checklist. We all have that wish list of places we want to visit. Write them down and try to start checking them off.
This diary will aid you in remembering more when you are ready to blog about it. You would want to do on your vacation or travel and the things you did during your trip, it will be impossible to forget the reasons you wanted to go and remember more of your visit. Once you know all that you would want to do, do as much desired research and figure out the best way based on your budget to go about doing it.
If you have a remarkable monument you want to see, it is imperative to find out the easiest way to get there and put it in your diary. When you want to participate in some excellent activities, make sure to write down the contact information of the tours, people, or places that facilitate all of these events. Your journal is that perfect spot to keep the contact information of your accommodations and transportations used before and during the trip.
Remember to write down why you are going from the beginning of the trip. Not every trip needs a complete explanation, and not every vacation requires a formal justification. So many people travel for all sorts of purposes or no reason at all.
Write Honestly on your Expectations, Findings and Disappointment:
Sometimes when you travel, your destination can be wildly different from what you had expected. For example, maybe you had envisioned the local food to be bad, which turned out to be very delicious. You had imagined the town to be smaller than you had imagined it. Thinking you would be more comfortable with the language but needed a translator. I usually advise that you write about it before you arrive in the city, whatever you imagine the place to be. This is to make it interesting to compare these predictions to what you experienced. Compare all of your expectations, all of your findings and discoveries, your disappointments and shortcomings.
As I had mentioned above, expectations can differ so much from reality. Most especially when you are going somewhere, you have never been to or going with someone you have never travelled with before. Jot down what you honestly think the trip will be like. First, are there things about the trip you would have changed? Second, are there things you had wished you did? Anything you wish you should not have done?
Write about how you can improve your travels for the next time you go away. Learn more when travelling somewhere new. Endeavour that you will learn a lot about that place’s customs, culture and people. By having a diary notepad to write down your observations as you are absorbing more of your surroundings.
Write in the Present:
Everyone knows that it is always easier to remember things when they are still very fresh in your brain. So try hard to write as much as you can while travelling. Possibly every day if you can. Your diary entries do not have to be too long, but let them highlight what you are feeling most importantly or that exciting activity you are engaged with at the moment.
Write about how you felt during your visit to the local market. Write on things you smell, taste and hear. If you had learned something new from someone, you spoke to at a bar, write about the clothes people wore and what was the view from the top of that mountain you had climbed like? Remembering and writing about all of these events before you go to bed may seem difficult, but I usually advise that you type in a few notes or reminders on your phone of what you had thought and how you felt as the events are going on in real-time.
This will serve as a unique and still simple way to remember more from your trip. Write about the things you are doing, the sights you are seeing, the music you just danced to, the food you just got to taste. Writing it all of these down at that very moment will get you excited and help you not to forget. Also, mark out the activities and places that you had enjoyed most, and if you know friends making plans towards going to that same place, you will be in a better position to let them on a piece of first-hand unbiased information about the area.
Pictures are Memories:
Snap! Snap! Snap!
Capture everything in sight! That laughter, the colour of the meals. Pictures regenerate forgotten memories. They will aid you in remembering more that happened that day when you are blogging about it. Apart from that sense of understanding and belief from your readers and subscribers, pictures will help you add spice and colour to your diary. This makes it all much more entertaining.
Even though your diary is meant for writing, these fanciful pictures are still worth a thousand words. Try combining these beautifully taken pictures with your first-hand accounts of what they represent.
They will make for an even more comprehensive narrative of your travels. Do not worry about glueing or taping or even posting anything either. Upload pictures straight into your online travel diary as there are apps these days to support your writings, and also, you can keep your words and photographs connected and organised.
Always Write on Your Feelings After the trip:
As long as you can write about your trip before you arrive, you can also write about it after you leave. Although the blank pages of your travel diary may not be a source of great inspiration, the trip will serve you fresh hot inspiration for your blog and website.
Express what the journey was like, what you had learned, what surprised you, what disappointed you? It is essential to express your feelings on your travels so you can retain fresh and new understandings. Based on these feelings and understandings, apply them to your future adventures and know better approaches to your next trip.
This also stands as a great way to learn about yourself. You can also pen down what you learnt about other people you may have travelled with and how you can grow.
Write on Recommendations and Reflections:
A diary is a place to record discoveries you have uncovered while exploring various exciting places you visit. By having all these findings in one place, you will be able to reflect on and recommend what you have learned and apply it to other parts of your life.
You do not need to be travelling to Dubai to write a travel diary. You can start by writing about a weekend getaway or a family. All you need is just a destination, and voila! Your holiday travel diary can begin. It would be helpful if you considered writing about people and their behaviours. Write about the new friends made. Write on if the locals were welcoming and if you learned something new from a stranger. Write about how the people you met affected your experience, whether you met them there or are fellow tourists.
Write about the food and recommend all steamy meal joints and where they can be found. Just because you call it your travelling diary does not mean that it can not double as a food diary.
If there were foods you loved and dishes you hated or recipes you can’t live without or write them down to remember them all. Make your discounted flight and hotel bookings here.
