Friday, July 11, 2014

The Benefits of Travel Journals (GSRG Blog Hop)

This was supposed to be here technically on July 12th, but I had a very traumatic and scatterbrained July 11th, so it ended up getting posted several hours early...so sue me. :-P

When I was eight years old, my parents took me out of school for a week in October. Though we would be on vacation, my mother, diligent as she was (and is to this day) didn't want me to fall behind in school. She asked my teacher for a packet of materials and negotiated a few special projects for me to complete, including a daily journal about my time away.

I still remember sitting at the wooden desk in the shore house writing in the tiny manila journal. I remember struggling for things to write and in the end, writing about even the most mundane parts of my day.

23 years later, I still journal when I travel. My journaling helped me process my unexpected and silly experiences while studying abroad in Hungary. Journaling helped me make sense of the paradoxical India while I lived there for six months. I journaled when I went to Great Britain with my family and when I went on a mission trip to Central America. Journaling helped me figure out my college experience away from home.

Why is it that decades after my week at the shore, I still choose to journal whenever away from home? Journaling offers an avenue for memory. Of course I can record anything and everything that happens during my time away. If I can't recall exactly what happened, I can always go back to my journal and see what struck me about the day or the week, or the month. I can remember the specific smells, sounds, and colors. I can remember the tour guide's name.

Another draw of the travel journal is introspection. Sometimes during travel strange things happen (like when the Chinese guys asked for English lessons in Hungary). Sometimes I experienced culture shock (like when the waiters didn't bring everyone's food at the same time in England). Sometimes I would find myself in situations and I wasn't sure what I thought or felt (like when I was being told I was getting married the next day in the Himalayas). It wasn't until I was seeing my words on the page that I was finally able to understand my response to my travels.

Of course, as a writer, there is an additional benefit to the travel journal that draws from the previous two. The travel journal is source material - glorious, raw, fantastic source material. Whether I use specific lines, situations, or locations, I can always check my impressions from a given place and time. I can always reference the things, though place them in a different context (especially when writing fiction). And there's the final potential use which is of course, the non-fiction book.

Even for non-writers, the benefits of the travel journal cannot be overstated. Years later, I still find myself rereading my journals - laughing at my folly or wondering how I survived the wilds. If only I still had my third grade journal. I wonder how much my writing has changed...

6 comments:

  1. Great idea! I love journaling and have been trying to teach my kids to do the same thing. And for a writer, I imagine it helps improve your craft.

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    1. Other than being a requirement (which I personally think all teachers should make) I doubt there's a way to force kids. *sigh*

      As to the other point, practice does make perfect. The more you write, the better you become. That is a MAJOR benefit. :-)

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  2. I wish I had done this for some of my trips. It's the really little things that make vacations, but they're easy to forget.

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    1. They totally are! Once you write those things down - just the act of writing it down - helps you remember. And then of course, you can always go back which is fun.

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  3. I wrote my first travel journal when I was six. It was after a family holiday to Ireland. I cut out pictures from a travel guide and wrote in big letters that spilled and fell off the page. I still have it and I will treasure it forever.

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    1. That is so sweet! That's the kind of thing I'd love my kids and grandkids to be able to see. How precious to have something like that! I think the earliest journal I have is probably a 9th summer trip to England. It was fun, but I don't think it has quite the same allure as your treasure!

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