My good reasons to keep a travel diary
When I travel, I always carry a travel diary with me , this little notebook where I can let the words flow. For those who are used to it, you will understand me, but for those who have not yet tested, I encourage you to bring a small travel diary with you on your next adventures. Here are my 5 good reasons to have a travel diary with you when you go to discover the world.
1. Keep a travel diary to relieve yourself of country ailments
Writing a travel diary more than 1000 km from my home has more than once allowed me to lay down ailments that weighed heavily on my shoulders. Funny, I often realized that, these evils, I carried them around from my own territory. They only weighed me a little more under the weight of my backpack .
Moving away from the source of our blues ( blues for those who prefer) is like scrolling your mouse wheel on Google Maps. To offer a point of view from outside our environment. At different scale.
Where do I feel heavy? Who’s leaning against me? When do I consider myself fulfilled – or simply consider myself –? What reminds me of my life? To the life that would make the eyes of the child that I was once shine.
Two more days ago, I thought I had learned all the lessons from this trip, and then Bill and Ann crossed our path. It’s crazy how you can spend years near some people without growing a millimeter, and barely a few hours near others to come out changed.
2. Keep a travel diary to make yourself a box of band-aids for the tougher times
Yesterday, I spent the day on a road in Quebec that none of the tires of my bazous had yet bitten. From the passenger seat, I watched these fields pass by on the other side of the window. It was a cool, sunny fall day.
In the air of recovery, allow yourself to recycle in your travel journal a couple of details that will remind you of small pleasures and reasons for living. Do it for those times when you will need to resort to a first aid box.
It is good to remind our eyes where they shone, our hands which doors they pushed open, our noses which smells shocked them, our taste buds which dishes made them salivate and our ears which dialects they did not have. only half seized.
3. Keep a travel diary to immortalize and offer a bit of magic to our successors
While selling maple syrup on European soil, a good friend once told me that she was planning to start
I don’t know about you, but I live for these moments. My body drinks it desperately. This romantic idea of an uncertain future, which, if realized, will send butterflies flying in your reader’s stomach. The guts of your lover, your child, your grandchild.
This vision also held me spellbound listening to the passionate speech of the director of the society of the history of my municipality. Imagine finding, in the false closet of an old house, a diary dating back more than a century. Isn’t it intoxicating to think how these writings will still manage, after so many years, to arouse emotions. Even following the death of its author, and that of its addressee.
4. Keep a travel journal so you can meet along the way
What a wonderful way to write to leave a message for the future. For what awaits us, and what we do not expect.
Write in the 2nd person singular to designate the first and singular person who matters in our lives. Address a message. To make an appointment.
Where would I open this travel diary again ? Where will my life be, my passions? Who will be closest to me? What will be my state of mind? And my body condition?
5. Keep a travel diary to sharpen your pen
Writing is more than writing.
A blank page is a space for oneself. A place where only the words that define you have a place. It’s a safe, free space where you can stretch out, black on white.
A place where it is allowed to spill words, ugly as beautiful, without censorship.
A blank page is also a blank canvas. It is an artistic tool.
A blank page is the perfect imperfect date with yourself.
A white beach is a learning tool. Enough to increase the mastery of his language, and the control of his emotions.
