I used my notebooks for anything and everything: to keep my grocery and to-do lists, addresses and phone numbers of people I meet, directions, my thoughts and feelings, spur-of-the-moment poetry, short stories, story ideas, packing lists, doodles, etc. Very often, my writing of the day ended up as my blog posts that night.

When traveling in Europe, I used the pages at the back to write down every town or region suggested to me by people I met along the way and most of the time, I amended my itinerary consequently (and never regretted it!) When I arrived in Greece, I realized that very often, road signs (and maps) didn’t have a Greek translation so I found the Greek alphabet online and wrote it down in my notebood and studied it. I also jotted down any foreign language phrase that would be useful where I was at the time.

I love the idea of keeping stubs and stuff: I usually just threw them in an envelope or Ziploc and never looked at them again. An idea: how about glueing an envelope to the front or back cover to put stubs in? Scrapbooking them among your musings is also a very interesting idea.

As a mixed-media artist and writer, I’ve always kept detailed visual journals — and I am often on the move, so I’ve experimented quite a bit with the “perfect” journaling set-up for travel. It’s a not-so-mild obsession, I guess.

On my last trip, I tried an absolute minimalist approach: just some very small wire-bound notebooks (two to start out) which I supplemented as they filled up along the journey. I was going for extreme traveling light, but I write daily. I mailed my notebooks back to my po box in the u.s., along with whatever ephemera I collected: ticket stubs, etc.

Having a notebook to write in kept me company on a solo journey, and the tiny size made it very convenient to jot down logistics, addresses of new friends, and such.

I also did another form of portable journal: I sent myself a postcard from every city I visited. This became sort of a game for me, as I had to find out where to buy stamps and select a card that represented my mood or a memory in the moment. I made a quick journal entry and sent it off.

Stamp buying tip if you’re in Paris: The underground mall in the Louvre has a post office open 7 days a week (!) with very beautiful stamped envelopes, a huge selection of pretty stamps, flat-rate mailing boxes to send home stuff. I collected a lot of paper in Paris…so this was brilliant!

I’m a always on the computer for work stuff, so I am a firm believer in going analog to give our creativity a place to stretch out and just scribble on the fly. Plus, like you and others mentioned: it’s not a target for theft. Although I consider my journals almost more valuable to me than a passport: which can be replaced.

I do hope you’ll share more about other gear you travel with (or not). It’s a great topic.

cheers!

I absolutely LOVE your idea about getting a hole punch and making notebook pages out of scraps….that’s my kind of notebook! It’s decided: my next one will be a Nora-style-recycled-paper notebook! Thanks!