Travel Journaling: How to Write Extraordinary Travel Diaries

A travel journal is a terrific way to capture travel memories and keep them forever. Our ability to recall these special times is so unreliable that, naturally, we want to record them so we can revisit them, over and over. What about other memories-the ones we make when we visit family or old friends? Or the old forgotten stories that our relatives tell us? Those nuggets that we don't think we will ever forget but, sadly, we do? What about securing a place for them by recording them in your travel journal? Imagine you are taking your children or spouse to visit relatives that they have not met before, perhaps to see a cousin or an elderly aunt. Before you leave home, you take out an old photo album and look at pictures of you and your relatives when you were little. There you are, standing near your parents, aunts, uncles, or cousins. Your kids want to know about these people, and you tell them the stories that spring to mind. Today's story is tomorrow's memory-if we can remember it. Travel journals ensure that we will. Our stories are part of what makes a family or a community. If we don't preserve them, they die when the storytellers die. If we want to keep telling our stories, then we need to be able to remember them. The best way to remember them is to record them. Your travel journal is both a bridge to the past and the key to the future.