Travel Week: Document the Journey

Flashback Summer:  Travel Week- Document the Journey

After a trip is over, the inevitable picture-sorting begins.  Your friends and family want to know how everything went, and you want to have something to show them while you tell them all your awesome stories, but you don't want to be that person with the giant album of pictures that never seems to end.  Here are some tips for documenting your journey creatively before, during, and after your travels:

Before and During Your Trip:

Get a travel journal.
I have a similar Typo Travel Journal as the one pictured below, and I just love it!  It's got a space for flight information, contact numbers, journalling, people I meet, weather, packing lists, really everything you need to prepare for a trip and to document it in writing while you're gone.  (I also suggest one with a sealable envelope/pocket that you can store paper items like ticket stubs in without losing them in the shuffle!)  You can also take this idea and create your own journal if you don't feel the options really cater to your style.
Flashback Summer:  Travel Week- Document the Journey
Cotton On Travel Journal
Obviously..... take pictures during your trip.
'Nuff said.

Film short snippets of scenery, music, activities, mini vlogging, etc.
Sometimes a picture is good, but a video captures something even better.

Collect random flat paper and cloth ephemera.
Food packaging, mailing envelopes with stamps on them, ticket stubs, brochures, pamphlets, posters you unpeel from walls (my sister did that once), fabric, letters, postcards, anything and everything is up for grabs!  Gather things with beautiful and descriptive graphics or writing to add detail to your documentation later.


After Your Trip:
Now that you've got all the stuff to document with, here are a few creative ways to display your trip memories and remember them for years to come:

Make a paper bag scrapbook.
Way cooler than a normal scrapbook, of course, because it's made of paper bags!  The bags give you lots of pockets, folds, and layers to work with.  You can add photos and writing to the pages and put ticket stubs, journal entries, and cut-outs in the pockets, or whatever you want!  Add fabrics, ribbons, and small items to give it some texture.
My aunt has a great tutorial on how she made a road trip paper bag album:
Flashback Summer:  Travel Week- Document the Journey

Make quilt blocks.
I've used old tourist t-shirts, local unique fabrics, local sayings and songs I've embroidered onto cloth in a quilt I'm working on.  Now I can point to each patch and have a story to go with it!  It's a very vintage idea, too!
(It's not done yet, and this is the only picture I have of it right now.  My apologies!)
Flashback Summer:  Travel Week- Document the Journey

Create a trip video.
If a picture is good, a movie is even better!  Use your pictures and video snippets to create a movie to show your peeps.
Here's an example of one I made for a trip to Italy a few years ago.
(Bear with me.  I'm sure I took pictures of and documented things that are normal or insignificant to others, especially European readers, but it was my first time in Europe, first time traveling without my parents, etc.  I included stuff that interested me, so it's all good!)

Make a shadow box.
I love the idea of having a wall of shadow boxes documenting my different trips.  (I'll be doing that soon, fo sho!)  Then you can take a quick look and see your trip all summarized in objects!  And with shadow boxes, the more variety in the type of items, the cooler it looks.  Here's a great example I saw on pinterest:
Flashback Summer:  Travel Week- Document the Journey


Leave it in your journal.
I sometimes bring gluesticks with me on my trip and scrapbook/journal along the way.  Here are a few examples from my own journals:
Flashback Summer:  Travel Week- Document the Journey
Half of an envelope mailed to me in Egypt (love the postal tape on it!  Arabic is beautiful to look at.)
Flashback Summer:  Travel Week- Document the Journey
This page has doodles, stickers, postcards, and the white picture of the cathedral is part of a plastic bag I cut out.
Flashback Summer:  Travel Week- Document the Journey
This one has writing, a receipt, a doodle of the Burg al Qahira (Cairo Tower), and straw wrappers from the Tower cafe


2 comments

  1. I thorougly loved this post, dear gal. Though I'm rarely able to travel very far these days myself, I adore traveling all the same and love to visit places near and far vicariously through my fellow bloggers who are able to get in far more adventures than me.

    Your art journals are wonderful! Do you scrapbook as well? I'm an avid scrapbooker and know that I'd make pages about my travels if I was going on any these days.

    ♥ Jessica

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    1. I hope that you'll be able to travel again soon, Jessica! :)
      I kind of scrapbook.... Not so much in a very neat, Martha Stewart sort of way, more in an altered art, hodge-podge sort of way. (It's cheaper and, I believe, more creative that way!) And since I've moved around a lot the past few years, I've gotten frustrated with having to pack lots of little scrapbooks that I don't look at often, so now I pretty much just do a scrapbook-art journal fusion to keep it all condensed.

      I bet you make brilliant scrapbooks! You seem like you've got crazy creativity that would produce awesomeness.

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