My Travel Journal - What I Use and a Little Flip Through

So yesterday I talked about my every day journal and my planners.  Today I want to show y'all my travel journal. It just sort of all came together into the form it's in now. Originally, I just used the main book inside the cover, but I had to keep a band around to keep it closed anyway, and I was itching to make a new TN cover.  So this whole thing came to be.

If I could be any other person on the planet, it would probably be Josh Gates. When I was a kid, I wanted to be Indiana Jones.  I was sure I'd go on to be an archaeologist, but it never happened. Life pulled me in other directions, but the spirit of adventure has never left me.  I'm not terribly brave now, but I was when I was younger, an I'd like to think if life had opened that path, I could have done it.

So, for now, I dream of traveling to far away places, and watch lots of shows about it, and I like to journal about the few trips and "adventures" I do get to go on.

 I wish I had been more of a journaler in my 20s and early 30s. That's when I went to England 3 times.  I LOVE flying, and had to have this plane charm when I saw it.

I added a few string bookmarks so I could add more little charms I find. I'd love to get an old coin that's not really valuable and get a hole put in it and use it as a charm.

 Inside the cover, one of the elastics, I have a zipper pouch I got on Etsy a while back. It's made from a Trader Joe's bag I think.  We don't have those here, but I think that's what it was. I just loved the print and it fits in so nicely with this notebook.

 The back side of the pouch has card slots as well.  The Explore book is just a lined journal that I just had to put inside the cover. 

 I've decided I'll use it for planning trips, so all the trip information before and after can be in one place.

 The other side of the pocket insert has a secretarial pocket I can use for tickets or larger ephemera.

And this is the main travel journal book. You can see it already has bits poking out of it.  I love a chunky, interesting looking book.

I'm not going to show every single page, but I did take a few pics of various trips documented in the book to show how I do it.  In one word: Messy. (But I love it anyway)

 The trip that started off the whole book was when Christopher and I had to go to Florida to load up the stuff his grandparents had left him into a moving truck and bring it all back to Tennessee. The rest of the family had finished with everything else, and we just had a shed full of stuff to get.  So, we made it as much of a vacation as we could, considering the circumstances.

Any time we stayed in a hotel, I'd try to get a piece of stationery or a post it note with the hotel logo on it.  And I decided to add the hotel bill as well, so one day we can look back and see what staying in different places cost us back then.

 We took back roads on the trip back as much as we could.  We were driving separate vehicles, but made sure to meet up at our favorite places, such as B&Js Steaks and Seafood in Darien, Georgia. Seriously amazing seafood! And I don't usually like seafood!

I also finally stopped at the orange grove road side stand I'd seen for years and never stopped at for whatever reason.  Who knows when we'll be back down that way, now that there's no family to visit anymore.

After leaving Darien, we headed for Savannah to spend the day. We'd always wanted to go, but not necessarily with a group of whiney teenagers or kids in tow, so this time we did it just the two of us.  I took like a thousand pictures, but EVERYTHING there is so beautiful! I started adding in travel brochures.  They are longer than the book, and stick out, but I don't care. 

 Any other ephemera got put in too.  Parking garage tickets, anything.

 And sometimes I just let the photos do the talking.

 And I finally found an excuse to buy post cards! I love post cards!  Now I actually always get at least two or ask the kids to send me two if they travel.  I have started putting them on the wall over my desk. <3 br="">

 This one was just doors that were really cool.

 The next trip was to Berea to move our kid into college. Lots of travel brochures, cards, ephemera and photos for that trip too.

There was also a trip back to our hometown for Heritage Days, but it's mostly just pics of the family,  so the next trip in the book is from the family vacation last summer to the cabin in Gatlinburg.  It also wasn't much as far as traveling a distance, but it was certainly an adventure.

 I found some adorable travel stickers at Walmart and the scropbooking stores.

 Yay more post cards!

 If it was paper, I grabbed it to glue it in this book lol!

 I made copies of the photos we bought on the chair lift, and they fit in here perfectly.

And the most recent trip was when we had a weekend getaway to see Kevin Smith in Knoxville and go to the Smoky Mountain Highland Games in Maryville. We took Ren and had a mini vacation. I found some free maps of downtown Knoxville which we did use to find lots of great places we'd heard about, so I had to add one as well.

So that's about it.  Not a lot in there so far, but there's lots more pages to fill.  I sure hope I get to travel enough to fill most of them, or maybe even finish the book!

I hope you get to look back on a life of adventures too!

Until next time!
Patty