Share Your Travel Journal with Loved Ones
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I treasure my travel journal. When I write about my travels,
I process the experiences much better. I
take time to appreciate what I learned, and I take care to safekeep my memories
of the people and the places that I will never encounter again in the same
ways.
My method of journaling has not always been the same. I read
some of my early journaling, and I regret not including the details of my
surroundings like the sounds and the sights. Those are the things that would
make me feel like I was living in the moment that I was writing about. I’ve had
the experience of writing about vacations where I write down where I went, who
I saw and what I did, but it would have been better to explain my impressions
too. Nowadays, I love to write about the surprising things I learn. When I travel, I like to ask questions about
why the foods there are traditional or ask questions about the local
industries. This is so much easier when I
take a tour and have a tour guide to ask questions of. Reading a book about the places I plan to
visit can be helpful, too.
I visited a community in Ohio called Chagrin Falls, and I
wrote a journal entry about it. It was
the beginning of summer, and I could sit outside on a bench, drink an iced tea lemonade,
and watch the people walk along the downtown streets. I had such a fun time
with my spouse who was with me, and the warm weather made me feel so relaxed. Being
seated, I felt I could be more attentive to what was going on around me.
In my journal I chose to capture the sights that were clear
signs of summer. A woman walked briskly in an eye-catching, yellow summer dress
as she carried a matching yellow gift bag.
I surmised that someone was going
to be delighted in receiving a gift that day. Making a cheerful observation
like this, I could tell I was in a good mood the day I wrote. My outlook plays a large part in how I
present my journal entries.
There was a red motorcycle parked on the street only feet
away from me. That struck me as a sure
sign of summertime and made me feel the anticipation of summer travel, or
specifically setting out on the open road.
It added to the thrill of my day.
My spouse commented that a good hamburger restaurant called
Flip Side was within sight of us. We
have been there, but because of the phrase, “on the flip side,” it started a
conversation between us about the virtues of being open-minded. The phrase “on
the flip side” usually introduces a second consideration of something, or an
alternative way of seeing an issue. How
fitting that around mealtimes I like to have a conversation about current
issues, politics, culture and – yes – travel adventures. With all these topics, it helps to keep an
open mind.
By journaling you can accumulate quite a lot of material,
depending on how often you write. I find
it is more manageable to write about just the experiences that leave the most
profound impressions on me, or to capture an especially pleasing environment
where I find myself.
If you write, you can share your travels with others,
too. I like to write to relatives about
my explorations. I like to send a paper
letter in the mail, especially to my long-distance relatives. In my adolescence, I wrote handwritten
letters to my great-great aunt who was a senior living in Florida. These letters were never meant for
publication, but my great-great aunt held them for years, and then as she aged,
she returned them to me. She mailed all
of them back to me when I was a young adult.
Then I was curious to see what I had written during my long forgotten middle
school years. It was a very thoughtful, sweet thing my great-great aunt did by
keeping those letters to send back. In
my adolescence, I wrote about family vacations among other things. Some things were childish thoughts. I think my great-great aunt appreciated the pen-pal
relationship, nevertheless. If you ever
wonder what your thinking was like as a teenager or tween, it is amazing to
read the things you wrote about in those times.
You see the things that mattered to you then. You can compare them to
the things that matter to you now. And
you see how much you grow and change.
Then I like to look outside myself and understand that other people have
similar growth experiences. Keeping a
journal in this way helps me have empathy for others.
