Posted in Fiction

Sharing my Travel Journal

Posted on by TravellinPenguin

The cover

I will start out with the statement- I Love Journals. I especially like looking at journals in book shops, overseas as I travel, on social media. Tik Tok has quite a few people who talk about their journals. Junk, Commonplace books, travel, daily, gratitude and on it goes. I know that tik tok has some dodgy content but I use the search bar for my interests and don’t see the other stuff. There are young people with their journals and there are older women who write, but I am going to crawl out of this rabbit hole and share my travel journal from Japan with you.

I need a big band to compress this thing.

From the moment I book the trip I start saving stuff. Flight info. Itineraries. A few photos from a travel guide. I also add a picture of the penguin from a small little printer I take with me. It prints my phone photos into small 2×3 stickers.

A coffee wrapper from hotel room, a receipt and a map.

Whilst travelling I don’t ever do as much as I want as after a morning sunrise shoot, early breakfast with the group, long days and socialising with before dinner drinks and long dinners I just get to my room, get things ready for the next day and collapse. But I do stuff everything I find into a bag and save what I can, then finish it when I get home. I don’t write much. There isn’t time.

One of the book’s illustrations

Instead I collect everything that is paper. Wrappings from snacks, labels from bottles if they are removable, tea bag wrapping, coasters, tour brochures, maps. I never know what I will find.

A few low value coins

Today I spread all that stuff out on my desk and began putting it all together. I still have blank pages so from now on I will cut out photos of Japanese items from magazines as I come across them.

A dinner menu of about 12 courses and a tour brochure

While browsing in Fullers one day before my trip, I came across a brilliant little journal that specifically stated ‘Japan’. There was another one beside it that said ‘France’. It made me want to research how many countries are represented by this publisher. I notice in the credits, that are in French, there is a web page. I’ve not looked at it yet but I will now I see it.

http://www.alibabette-editions.fr

The journal has some beautiful Japanese illustrations throughout the book plus other pages that are lined. Between the illustrations and the content I added it has turned into a beautiful little book.

Brochure from the castle we visited.

I hope you enjoy looking through some of the pages. As I seldom buy souvenirs in other countries (except journals) I find this is a wonderful souvenir. I will print out a few of my own photos and continue to add things to it.

A tea wrapper and a chocolate biscuit wrapper.

I hope you find it fun and maybe I’ll inspire you to think about the things you could pick up, travelling or on your own day trips. I find it adds purpose to any outing and very, very relaxing assembling it all.

A hotel receipt.

The back of journal

Publishers information

🌻 Penguin keeps his own journals. I can only guess what he writes about. 🌻

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Author:

I live a retired life in Tasmania, Australia. I love books, travel, animals, photography, motor biking and good friends. I indulge in all these activities with the little Travellin' Penguin who has now shared five continents with me. We love book shops, photography walks and time with friends as all our family is in USA and Canada. I enjoy visitors to my blog so hope you'll stop by.

20 thoughts on “Sharing my Travel Journal”

  1. Thank you so much for sharing your awesome Japan journal with us! I love looking at them and seeing all the goodies you’ve pasted in there.

    I’ve been journaling my entire life, starting around age 8 with one of those 5-year diaries. Most of the entries for the first few years consisted of “I’m bored” or “Today was boring”. lol

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  3. While I don’t do this anymore Pam I do love seeing what others do. I do focus on the travel blog which takes a lot of time. I usually didn’t sleep until midnight on our recent trip, and I didn’t read one book.

    The thing I used to love particularly collecting in Japan was the chopstick sleeves. Some of them are beautiful. And if you get duplicated they make perfect bookmarks.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. I have had some gorgeous ones, but I didn’t save them this last trip. I found an old lot recently but am
        not sure whether I kept them. If I did I’ll take a pic and send them to you so you can see.

        Liked by 1 person

  5. I used to keep things like bottle labels and paper menus… but, when you get to the “advanced years” and limited space…well you can easily find yourself becoming a hoarder!

    But I do love reading about your travels, Pam. Bon voyage, m’amie!

    Liked by 2 people

  6. It is a beautiful journal and a remembrance of Japan. I also do journaling, but write as well. However, that takes such a lot of time, so therefore I have a big pile of latest trips which has not yet found its place. I think I will adapt and just mention places etc.

    We also visited Himeji caste, so beautiful. Did you know that You Never Live Twice was filmed there? You find the location spot on youtube.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. You can watch just the scene if you searh on the title and Himeji on youtube. Although I saw the movie many years ago, but of course did not think so much on locations at that time.

        Liked by 1 person

  7. Wow, you’re right, it is beautiful.

    I write about my travels on my travel blog as I go, and I always upload all my photos to Google in case something happens to my camera and/or its thingummy that stores the photos, so I can also add a few photos to my blog as well.

    But when I get home, I get all the photos printed out properly and I make a scrapbook out of what I’ve written on the travel blog, the photos, and also from what I’ve written in my private journal (which is a small Moleskine.) Like you, I also hoard all kinds of stuff from the trip, and I put those into my scrapbook as well: tickets, postcards, pamphlets and maps from galleries and museums, menus &c. Plus, art books from galleries and museums too, they are mostly the only souvenirs I buy. Big ones go into the art shelves but I add the skinner ones to the scrapbook if they stay put as long as I use enough double-sided tape. I’ve been doing this since our first European trip back in 2001 so I now have a wonderful collection of all our trips, and I often look through them to check something or just to enjoy them.

    I think it’s lovely to have mementos of our travels.

    Liked by 1 person

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