What is a Travel Journal: A Simple Guide for Beginners 2025

Are you the kind of person who loves to preserve memories — not just through photographs, but through words, doodles, and those little ticket stubs that always seem too precious to throw away? If yes, then welcome to the world of travel journaling.

A travel journal is more than a notebook. It’s your companion on the road, a silent witness to your experiences, and a creative space that helps you capture the essence of your journey — whether you’re walking through historic lanes of an old city, sipping chai in your hometown, or hiking in the hills.

You might note down your thoughts at the end of each day, sketch the pattern of a temple gate, or paste a museum ticket next to a quote someone said. Every page becomes a tiny archive of your lived moment.

This guide is especially written for beginners in 2025 who want to start travel journaling but don’t know where to begin. In this article, you’ll find:

What a travel journal is and why you should keep one
Tips to choose the right notebook (with a focus on size, shape, and GSM!)
Journaling supplies to carry on the go
Ideas for what to write before, during, and after your trip
And gentle reminders to stay consistent without stressing over perfection

So, grab a cup of coffee (or your favorite pen!), and let’s dive into the simple joy of creating your own travel journal — one that’s as unique as your journey.

What is a travel journal, and why should you keep it?

Very simply, a travel journal is a writing record that you create about all the places you visited.

You go to another city, another country, your home village or to local monuments- you take your journal with you or you come back and note down things that you experienced. You’re basically documenting your journey.

The purpose is to preserve your memories and reflect on your experiences.

When you flip back through the pages of your travel journal, you might remember those small details or emotions from your trip that were very happening at that time and made your trip a little extra special but you forget with time.

You learn new things, reflect on challenges and even understand different cultures.

Your travel journal can also be your creative outlet – where you sketch, write prose or verse or make collages (I call them “annotated photo diagrams”) inspired by the things you see on your journey.

Choosing Right Types Travel Journal

The choice is two fold –

A notebook or;
digital journal

Here, I’ll be starting with choosing your notebook. For developing a digital travel journal, you can go for apps such as Day One, Journey, Diaro, Penzu, Rosebud, Notability, Diarium and personal recommendation being of Notion-each offering unique tools for capturing and organizing your travel memories across devices. Choose what best suits your style!

There are multiple varieties of notebooks in the market available right now, and it can get quite overwhelming to decide what to purchase!

After all, you’re putting in your valuable financial resources to buy a notebook. Let’s make a thoughtful choice here. I suggest that you think of –

Size and shape of your notebook, and;
The quality of the paper inside.

Whenever you go to a stationery shop, a wholesale market or online shopping, just fix these two criteria in your mind to easily select from the many options – instead of thinking that you like all of them and want to purchase all of them.

SIZE AND SHAPE OF YOUR NOTEBOOK

Brodly, you have four options here:

A4-size notebook
A5-size notebook
B5-size notebook
B6 notebook

The catch with talking a less page/thin notebook (of either sizes) is that you dedicate one notebook for each trip.

So, every time you undertake a journey, you need a fresh notebook of that kind.

This is ideal for people who are frequent travelers to different cities, counties or geographical reasons – and stay there for long durations.

I recommend taking a classic A5 notebook whether ruled, dotted or plain or weather spiral, loose or hardbound.

If you are very particular about light weighing items while travelling, then you can go for more compact options like a B6 notebook (whose spreads will be similar to an A5 notebook) or a “long” (memo) notebook (which needs to be handled a little differently).

Also Read: First Page of Travel Journal: Creative Ideas to Begin Your Journey 2025

THE QUALITY OF PAPER INSIDE (& EXTRA FEATURES)

The standard way of checking for paper quality inside a notebook is by the GSM ie. “Grams Per Square Metre”.

It refers to measuring the weight of the paper – the heavier the paper, the higher the number of grams per square metre, and generally, the higher perceived quality of the stock. Basically, it’s the THICKNESS or THINNESS of the paper.

Open the notebook options in front of you. Touch the paper inside, and observe how it feels. Light or heavier?

If you do not take into consideration the quality of paper inside, then it is a direct gamble with any level of aesthetics.

A poor-quality paper may be good for everyday use but not for something like a journal.

It may give you the opportunity to purchase a very inexpensive notebook but the pages will wither away quickly and will not be able to withstand the weight of any photographs, flaps, tickets or stickers you’d want to attach.

A poor-quality paper notebook is also prone to paper tears.

So, be mindful of the paper quality of the notebook you’re choosing. Pick a journal that you’d love.

Branded journals/notebooks usually have the notebook size (A5, B6, A4) written on the front or back cover.

They also have the GSM size mentioned – anything between 75 to 90 GSM is good for our purpose.

If your array of options is from non-branded notebooks with no such details mentioned, there simply rely on the feeling the paper.

The lighter paper will make no such shallow sound. Rely on your feeling.

Here are some links useful for understanding more about paper quality and its uses.

One peripheral parameter of choosing your notebook- besides the two main ones (ie. size and paper quality) is the “extra feature” of the notebook.

Maybe it comes with an extra sticky notes set a pen holder, flap at the front or back of the notebook, or zip-look – all these features all to the value of maintaining your travel journal. While it’s not a necessity, you may still keep an eye our for it.

THE QUALITY OF PAPER INSIDE (& EXTRA FEATURES)

The “extra feature” in my notebook!

Supplies for your Travel Journal

Your notebook
Black, blue and red pen (or your favorite markers
Two highlighters (preferably of pastel shade)
A couple of washi tapes
A glue stick (for sticking photos/momentos)
Travel journal stickers
A set of sticky notes

When I say momentos here, I mean collecting and pasting things like your fight or train tickets, a receipt from a remarkable restaurant in this new city, a ticket for using that city/country’s public transportation services, museum tickets or anything of paper that you could possibly put in your travel journal.

Now, like choosing your notebook from the multitude of options, you need to choose your style of stickers for keeping your travel journal. Have a look at the following options-

My personal favorite for a trip are the travel-theme studies. The colourful words, phrases, stamp and suitcase impressions just seem to fit our theme!

For purchasing travel journal stickers, you can either opt for Mr DIY stores or look up online.

On Amazon, you’ll find buying options for “travel scrapbook stickers” I bought from Mr. DIY store, and they cost me anywhere between Rs 100-200 for one set of stickers.

I also recommend carrying a bunch of sticky notes- again, we have a lot of varieties for this. I recommend taking about the plain square ones. Alternatively, you can pick more quirky ones!

Keeping sticky notes might just turn out to be very useful; consider it an extension of your journal page that you couldn’t possibly expand.

More often than not, you can use your sticky notes to note down random things spontaneously and paste them later on your journal page.

In my view, sticky notes just create that look in your journal where everything is organized.- but, a little messy.

What to write in a Travel Journal?

This is my notebook I use as my travel journal:-

I purchased this in a set of notebooks from Daryaganj in (Old) Delhi. It was appearing to be plain, so I added a quirky sticker from my travel journal stickers.

Now, before we start on your spreads (the technical term for making a layout in your bullet journal), let’s discuss what exactly do we put in a travel centric bujo (i.e. bullet journal) or simply, a travel journal.

First, set a goal for your journal- do you want to keep a diary or is it an info and experiential travel log?

Second,we will be writing our itinerary, packing lists,must-visit spots, ticket details, contacts, accommodations info etc.

You can also add a map or a route sketch to travel the journey visually.

While you’re on the trip, you’ll be ticking off the must-visit spots that you went to and nothing about the place on the spot,

When you’re back to your accommodation after the day’s visit, record any feeling or observation that comes first to your mind the moment you pick up your pen.

Reflect upon the day’s visit, record any feeling or observation that comes first to your mind the moment you pick up your pen.

Reflect upon the day’s experiences. Now, it is not uncommon to be exhausted after the whole day out and then again going out the next day… you ‘d probably want to relax and not use your brain to write.

Maybe you’d do it later! But here is the moment, when you need consistency to mention your travel journal.

Trust me, It’s going be worth it. Capture the feeling while you are there.

Look out for collecting things like your boarding pass, receipts from the shop and restaurants, a ticket paper with the hotel’s name on it, museum tickets, excerpts from that city/country’s local newspaper and any physical photographs that you may get the trip, you’ll be putting all of that in the travel journal spreads.

In summary, in your travel journal, you’ll be writing:-

DAILY ENTRIES ((what you did, places visited, special moments)
THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS (how you felt about the experiences)
INTERACTIONS WITH PEOPLE (Conversations with locals, fellow traveller, talks within your group)
FOOD EXPERIENCES & WEATHER CONDITIONS (Local delicious, fine dining, street food, favorites etc. or the most ones! This helps recall the atmosphere of the place)
ABOUT THE SITES YOU VISITED (Monuments, museums, art galleries, university, library, office space. This usually depends upon your interests and occupations)

And you’ll be creatively enhancing your travel journal by :

ADDING SKETCHING & DOODLES (draw landscapes if you can, rough diagrams of the architectures, or you could just doodle things like ‘OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS PLACE OR ‘OH MY GOD I HATE THIS PLACE” – whatever comes to your mind first after seeing it!);
COLLECTING & ATTACHING MOMENTOS (Tickets, receipts, postcards, pressed flower etc.);
USING THEMED STICKERS, STAMPS AND WASHI TAPES(for the visual appeal & organization);
HANDWRITTEN NOTES OR LOCAL PHRASES (whether somebody wrote something for you or you saw a phare on the local signatured – note it down. Capture the cultural essence of the place.)

When you keep these parameters in mind, when you’re looking out for these things while also being duly present and enjoying your trip- your travel experiences become enhanced.

Your memory about the places you visit becomes enhanced, so do your observation skills in general.

You’re in a different city – you pick up the bill and you think in Kolkata it was Bengali & English… does the English language bind all Indians together now? Then you keep that bill on never know what thought processing you may develop from your travel experiences- keeping your travel journal is a direct reflection of that. At first, looking out for these parameters or your travel journal might seem like a chore, but consistency will eventually make it into a habit.

Here are few points to keep up with journaling during travel:

Try to be consistent (set aside 15-30 mins daily);
Use prompts if stuck (“what surprised me today? or “best thing I ate?” or coolest historical place I saw? or “weirdest thing that happened to me/us today? You can ask the internet for such prompts, or create such a list prior to your trips);
Write on the go (you may use your sticky notes or even the notes app on your phone for quick thoughts. Just don’t skip it);
Don’t stress over perfection! (Focus on the experiences rather than neatness. Let the creativity and feeling flow.)

Tip: You can write down these bullet points at the back of your travel journal if you’re a beginner or if you face difficulty in being consistent.

Tip: When you’re back from the trip, just go through your daily log and mementos that you collect. You can review and reflect on it- as in “what stood out most in the trip?” or ‘a lesson that I learnt?’ Summarize your five favorite experiences and five points to look out for in future trips. Organize and decorate your travel journal spreads.

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Wrapping Up

Now, you can take your first step into the exciting world of travel journaling! We understood that a travel journal is not just about writing — it’s about capturing our adventures, emotions, and little moments we might otherwise forget. We explored how to choose the perfect notebook by focusing on its size, shape, and the feel of the paper. We also gathered some fun supplies to make our journals colorful and personal. Now, with our notebooks ready, let’s get excited — because in the next parts, we’ll discover creative ideas to fill these pages with unforgettable memories!