Wanderlust: The Travel Journal

Travel.

The very word gives me a thrill up one side and down the other.

It's no secret that Sarah and I are {pretty nearly} always battling a case of Wanderlust. In the past year I've gone on quite a few trips, and it seems that this year I'm looking at going on several more. What does this mean?

This means I need a travel journal.

I don't mean a "Today I did this, yesterday I did that, and here's my ticket stub to prove it."

I mean a good solid travel journal. The kind you could sit and flip through and relive the whole experience. I mean anecdotes and scribbles of description and conversation all spattered with ink and sketches, like this artist's notebook from The Weald.

I mean watercolor of a corner of a street in Italy (if I ever get there) or a sketch of a bookstore front in London.  I mean little obscure memories and noticings scrawled into the journal for keeps:

(source)

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I think this one is awesome. Look at the care someone took!

Or this one!

I haven't found a journal yet in which to do all this. I would love a leather-bound journal with many pages of thick creamy paper...unfortunately those are the most expensive kind. :P But whatever kind of journal I do end up owning, I can just imagine sitting in some cafe sketching the people walking by, or the man playing a saxophone in the corner of the Subway in NYC. When traveling, you're always waiting for one thing or another--flights, tickets, food, transportation, entry, etc. So why not spend some of that time writing in your travel journal?

I'm not going to wait for NYC or Europe to do this. I'll start with road trips to places nearby. I'll start with anywhere and everywhere I go, because to prepare for this grand new idea of travel-journaling (and to hone and pick back up my art skills) I am doing a sketch a day for a year. Yes, yes, I know this is a challenge. But I will try my best and give it a go. :) I've done two so far....

Wow. It's been a long time. Obviously there is room for improvement. Neither the book or the teapot is is anyway symmetrical, and yet I love getting back to my drawing. I did miss it. :)

By the time I go anywhere of real importance, I hope to have my artistic skills sharp and clever to record all those wonderful adventures! Any of you keep/have kept a travel journal?