New Year Travel Resolutions for Champagne Travel on a Beer Budget - No. 2
2) Keep a journal
Continuing with the resolution theme, one thing I am aspiring to do more of when I travel is to keep a journal.
As air travel becomes cheaper and travel increasingly accessible, I believe it is so important to remain mindful of the privilege that it is to be able to travel to far flung places and of the life-changing qualities that travel can hold. Travel can allow us to re-assess our lives, broaden our perspective and need I say, have an absolutely fabulous time.
Keeping a journal allows new ideas, concepts, amazing memories & grandchildren-worthy stories to be kept forever. And really, who knows how famous your memoirs could become long after your gone (or at least be a good read for someone).
But if you’re like me, you have all the intentions of keeping a journal when you travel, but the intentions can fly out the window when you’re in a sun-kissed location, champagne in hand.
So here are some simple ideas I have found helpful in the past that I am planning on employing this year as I resolve to keep a travel journal:
a) Buy a small journal
If your journal is a smaller, convenient size, you can pop it in your day bag and use little opportunities throughout the day to pop in a few ideas - when sitting in a cafe, waiting for a train, flying in a plane etc. The larger your journal, the less likely you are to have it on you at all times.
b) Develop a routine
One of the reasons that some of us travel is to escape our daily routines, but sometimes it can be comforting during your journeys to have a a few small rituals that give some structure to your travelling day. One great rituals to add to your day is to set aside 15 minutes or so to write in your journal. You can make it the last thing you do before you call it a night, write in your journal as you have your morning coffee etc.
c) Get inspired
One of my biggest motivations for setting this travel resolution is reading inspiring travel writing and vowing to keep a record of my own adventures.
Great travel, great food & great writing are the three things that make this champagne traveller a happy girl. So I knew I was onto a winner when a wonderful friend gave me the book ‘Endless Feasts’. This compilation of food & travel writing from the last 60 years from a plethora of writers is edited by Ruth Reichl and has some absolute gems within its covers.
My favourite piece of writing in the book is Pat Conroy’s memories of one of his trips to Italy titled ‘The Romance of Umbria’. I’ll leave you with a beautiful passage from this piece and see if it doesn’t inspire you to keep record of your champagne travels too:
Umbria. The shuttered beauty of the very name strikes me as luscious as a pear, as dark as the boars that roam her mountains, gorging themselves on wild chestnuts. This is a place where the centuries give up their stories at their own pace.
You go to Tuscany because you must; you go to Umbria because you can. It is the province in Italy you travel to when you want the country itself to enter the pores of your skin after you have grown weary with sites and endless churches and surly crowds moving through the taut, sovereign air of the museums. Umbria is Italy turned inward, its prayer to itself.
Endless Feasts, pp. 84-85
January 16th, 2008 at 8:07 am
Wow — Pat Conroy sure can right.
As for journal keeping — another key reason is you won’t remember everything. And the more you travel, the more you won’t remember, because your mind gets so full of images and facts that others get pushed out and trips start to blur. I have a travel purse specifically selected for the pocket on the back that accommodates a notebook — so it’s always handy. When I was younger and carried tons of camera equipment, the notebook went in my camera bag. But I’ve always carried one. When I get home and I need to remember something, I can scan the notebook and find he name of the painter, the phone number of the friend I met, the date of the battle, the genus of the bird that so delighted me, the name of the little beach off the beaten path, how to wrap the turban I bought in Morocco, and vastly more. It’s also a great place to record everything you’re buying — I always keep a running tally on the back page — makes you lots more popular with customs officials.