How do you start a travel journal, especially if you have never journaled before? Take a shortcut. This means writing short, brief phrases that describe the people, places and things you encounter on your journey, instead of trying to tackle long sentences and hefty paragraphs. And because you're on-the-go, you may not have time for anything more than short, pithy descriptions. Think postcard writing, but even more brief!
Here are a few examples, cited in "Creative Utopia," a book on maximizing your creativity by graphic designer Theo Stephan Williams. In her chapter on "Keeping a Journal," she includes a few of her own personal photos from a trip to Provence in France.
Describing her hotel Les Antiquities:
-- beautiful English flower garden
-- cherubs over bed
-- funny mustachioed check-in man
-- butt-shaped minitub
Describing Dominique, a photographer she met:
-- quick smile, slight space between front teeth
-- has supreme eye for lighting
-- Skecher shoes
-- worried about his health
-- fun, excited about his work
Refer later to your brief comments to write in greater length after you get back to your hotel room. Or you might try your hand at creating a poem or haiku based on one or more of your phrases. Or even take your snippets as is and use the words as borders for your photos in a scrapbook, writing with a colored or calligraphy pen along all four sides. Everytime you look at the photos and read the words, memories from your trip will come flooding back. ◦
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