Countdown: Travel Journal

I’ve kept a diary since I was ten years old, but I’m sad to say I’ve never been much of a travel journal person. I had a notebook on my first trip to Europe, the month with my mom; but having company prevented me from writing in it as much as I wish I had. Mostly I just noted what we did that day, where we ate and slept, and shared my thoughts directly with my mother. I’m glad I have that notebook, with its stains, lists and sketches; but I wish I’d recorded more of my first trip out of the country.

During my year abroad, I didn’t keep a specific travel journal. Most of what I had to say went right into my diary, or into emails, or this blog. I was more or less stationary, living overseas, so it worked to have different outlets for different facets of the trip. But I know this time I’ll be on the run, and traveling light. So it makes sense to have one place to put all my thoughts, feelings, and impressions.

I bought this travel journal, pictured, from Chronicle Books’ website in ’04, before a trip overseas that didn’t end up happening. I love it. It has all different kinds of paper, many with photographic images from the author’s trips around the world. I don’t know why I hadn’t done anything with it before. I guess I was just waiting for the right trip. This is it.

I’ve made a vow to write in it every day, even just notes or scratchings or incoherence. Sometimes the stupidest rambling or complaining, as you sip your expensive java in a foreign cafe and pretend to be intellectual, ends up being the most hilarious thing to reread at home. The things that piss you off the worst while overseas are the funniest stories, later on. I’m going to record them, in all their bitchy glory, right in between the swooning Paris ecstasy and the glowing praise of St. Peter’s dome. Ups and downs. Maybe I’ll share a few pages on here when I get back.

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