Travel Journaling

2020-Mar-25

Best way for keep travel journals in modern day

Just like everyone, I from handwritten journal to digital journal, and found it stuck by various journal app have their specific use case, but with modern lifestyle, we are evolution from pure text or one or two photo the past in the past, to multimedia based, we end up with so many video and photo we want to keep, beside the text. The problem is, I need to keep migrating to higher local storage for endpoint client devices, like my laptop, tablet and smartphone.

OneNote is the closest to be ideal due to it mimicking a physical notebook and with the powerful digital ink with digital pencil. But again, if I want to build and write once, and no more need to worry, I found myself more comfortable to put them all into a dedicated website like this instead.

I am not sure whether it works for the long run, but I think it is worth it to keep going this way.

As I saw the old fashioned and generation of travel journal and notebook like above, it really inspired, but the issue is modern days, we have more to document now, in the past can be only few photo or sketch, majority is text based, but to make use of modern technology and medium, for sure it is mix media, text, photo, video and audio and with range of hyperlinks to useful information or further reading.

Above is a digital midori alike travel journal I keep, from 2019.12 Cyprus and Malta trip. It already mimics very close to the physical midori travel journal i used to have and keep. Only problem is despite it acts like a notebook, it pages based, nothing wrong, but I think modern technology did favor digital medium, it is more efficient to keep and write at a faster speed. It provides a "warm media" experience of the post and allows me to write directly in the mobile phone I always carry. I no need to worry about running out of paper, since it does not run on paper. Issues come when I want to perform a quick search, flip through the pages and will not be able to compete with the speed of digital search engines.

Another travel journal capture from my digital travel journal carry and write in midori travel journal notebook size. In case that is the style someone is trying to do in the future. It is never right or not, more in terms of the taste manner, I found it helped me write like the way I in the past I wrote my physical midori travel journal.

Above is another travel journal I keep, if you travel in Japan, you will know what it is. By visiting the buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, the officer can help you to write in your special notebook. Again, I end up with this type of print media I want to keep along the travel trip here and there. I found out that the best way is to digitally snapshot it and put it into a digital journal to preserve the memory. It is easier to organize everything in digital media.

Of course, I keep a physical midori travel journal, and with me for so many trips. I found it more a matter of lifestyle. It allows me to jot here and there, clip some paper material inside or a small photo print. A very long period of time I actually keep them.

Snapshot of my physical travel journal while traveling Laos. Try to pick out a few photos of the day, print it out, attach it to the page and just write down my thoughts. And let it keep going until filled book after books, trip after trips.

I dropped the practice after I found it ended up carrying just too many things with me, if want to travel light, digital journaling is the way to go, I told myself, this is why I end up eventually writing the digital journal you saw in the early post.

Before, I have attempted to do a digital sketch, print it out, and then handwritten over it. End up I got issue to deal with paper, this is why along the way, I fully aware what work for me and digital journal is the way to go, it just a matter for mobile app can sync with laptop and tablet or alternative way. I found out that end up I have local storage issue, and for pay subscription for own data I develop, I found it not really viable mean for long run, so I end up drop those digital product, include Day One, Journey App, EverNote, OneNote (OneNote I still use for office work like digital notebook).

AwesomeNote is beautiful, but it works for iOS devices only, not cross platform. Since they drop sync with Google Drive and only work with EverNote, I used it for a while and then dropped it, local storage and sync matter.

I used to keep a travel map with travellerpoint, but it seems that recently they changed the mapping engine, it ended up very time wasting for I provide the location, GPS or not working like in the past, so drop it as well. Its mapping is very close to ideal, in particular traveling a lot of places, overlapping places in different trips, it resolves it better in their way.

If I want to have real time capture for where I travelled, nowadays I mostly turn on polarsteps to capture my actual travel map this way.

Special print media I came across while my photo work in the past submitted to a photography magazine and it being selected and shown in the print, I end up just keeping a photo snapshot for that moment, it seems digital is easy for me to keep in days this way.

One main reason I shift to digital journal is because I take more travel photography for each trip I have taken, capture those specific moment, and I found out that photos tell the story by itself, what i need is just to provide a proper place for it to exist, and I think digital journal is a good way for me to tell my traveller story this way.

Photo of mine, taken by my wife, while at Valletta, the capital of Malta, Cyprus and Malta trip 2019.12. At the end of the day, I enjoy traveling, so I hope to minimize what is necessary and allow me to enjoy the travel moment by moment. I think for the rest of the same minded traveller will know what I mean. Travel light is the way to go. For my next changes, most likely will be carrying only smartphones with multiple lenses, that address most of my travel photography needs. I know, I am not taking photos to make a living, I actually run a business for a living, I take photos more to enjoy that moment to take it, allow me to exercise the decisive moment and frame the scene, snap it.

Fully digital sketch I recently start practice, with ipad pro with pencil 2, despite no as handy like in the past I sketch and use it as a travel journal, but I found it easy to insert just like photo and image for my digital journal, I will keep going this way to see how it goes. Technology changes at a fast speed, I think maybe what I really need is just smartphones like Galaxy Note with pencil, I can sketch it, since it is considered a compact form, I will see whether that lifestyle will be what next I will go after in future.

Another digital sketch with ipad pro and pencil 2, I found that when I want to slow down, besides writing and thinking of sketching the scene I saw, if I do not want to take a photo, it provides me another chance to go back to the travel scene.

It has a period of time in the past, I will based on the travel photo I take, import into Photoshop and perform digital sketch processing, I found it also a good way to help me preserve the travel memory well, in the end, it all about what we saw and we choose the mean to capture them, whether or not it is right or wrong, we are the only one can judge for it, and it more or less a matter of lifestyle choice and preference.

My digital sketch with an early ipad now saw it look simple, but it did help me preserve what I sketch at that time.

Turn back the time further to 2008 - 2009, I just use sketch books as my travel journal, sketch and write on it. Now saw back, it helped me flip back on the time, if you can read this post and till the end, that means somehow, my new choice to use this website as the travel journal, did help me to share my thoughts for what the best modern days travel journal will be.