The pace of modern living is certainly one of the things we find most challenging. From morning to evening, there seems to be a barrage of people and events and things vying for our attention.
In the same breath, I think it’s fair to say that most of us know (even if it’s somewhere deep down inside us) that giving ourselves some form of ‘pause’ is healthy in so man ways. Mentally, it helps calm your outlook; physically, it alters your pace in good ways; emotionally, it leaves a vestige of hope that life has important values; and spiritually, it can tune you to ways of seeing that are only hinted at in that frantic pace of modernity.
Your Travel Journal, it seems to me, is a perfect vehicle to get the most out of our much needed ‘pause’. Not that the pause needs to be optimized or maximized, so to speak. Rather, taking a pause to make your Travel Journal entries or sketches nurtures a creativity that I think so many of us crave.
The rhythm and patterns of your travels are so easily captured in just a few short sentence - and they will add rich context to your time.
First, we’re probably predisposed to the pause needed to keep a Travel Journal because a vacation (in whatever form) is, itself, a pause in that rush of life. Our travels interrupt the frenzy of modernity with a calm freshness in our outlook - and your Travel Journal will leave you with legacy memories of those rich and precious times.
I remember hiking to the top of Virginia Falls on the Nahanni River in the Northwest Territories and taking a pause to do a couple quick sketches. That brief time is so clear in my mind even today all these years later. One of my crew mates took a photo of that pause, and I can almost see the pause in me as I sketch.
The brief pause I took to make a couple of small pencil sketches of the beautiful and wild Virginia Falls on the Nahanni River has helped embed that memory of the trip.
Second, a Travel Journal can deepen the quality of your vacation experiences. The pause you take to make your Travel Journal entries embed those events and times and places more deeply. As a result, they remain clear for so much longer. Certainly, we will all remember things about our travels - but if you pause to keep a record of those events and people and places, they will definitely hold a stronger place in your life.
Third, when you are finished your travels, you will have a wonderful accumulation of those paused moments. The benefit here is that you’ll feel a wonderful sense of achievement and, ultimately, I believe that will build your self confidence. Imagine for a moment, that 5 years from now you pick up that Travel Journal you kept. You will be holding your memories in a tangible form that you have created. No one can take that away from you! Ever!
The pause you take to record your travel will never be lost - and those memories will enrich your future.
I can’t tell you how may articles I’ve seen that laud the value you get when you take a bit of time for yourself - when you ‘pause’. What a wonderful way to refresh that pause when you look back over your Travel Journals in the years to come. I think you will find that they will renew you in curious and compelling ways.
How much more quickly and clearly will travel memories come back to you if you took a moment for that ‘pause’ and recorded a dramatic view like this?
Finally, remember that keeping a Travel Journal isn’t supposed to be a job….so relax and I think you’ll quickly find that you get better and better with every single Travel Journal you keep.
To help with the challenge of ‘what to include’ in your Travel Journal, I’ve attached a link to a PDF that I’ve put together to help you build that framework and get you going. Years from now, you’ll never regret having kept a Travel Journal, and your descriptions will be so much richer if you pay attention to your 5 (and 6th) senses.
Email me to let me know how I can help you get going on setting up your very own Travel Journal. Tell me what your biggest barriers are, and I’ll help you overcome them.
Go ahead and click this link to download you framework on Travel Journal ‘content’!
https://www.newtraveljournal.com/50-best-Travel-Journal-Prompts
Brought to you by: www.newtraveljournal.com
