Croatia Travel Journal
Last summer we took a dream trip through Croatia, Slovenia and Hungary. We drove the coast, explored the mountains and pretty much lived in a fairy tale for 3 weeks. Croatia and Slovenia are stoked full of the most surreal and idyllic cities and landscapes. The turquoise oceans, the red/orange rooftops of 1000 year old cities, flowers in every window and truffles on everything. It is a delight for your senses and an artists' pleasure.While travelling I wanted to be in every moment, but every moment came back to back to back and faster and faster and we were a bit overwhelmed with the gorgeousness of every turn we made. Thankfully I came prepared with a beautiful and simple travel journal and I only needed a few moments each day to capture the highlights of our trip so as to not lose the beauty of our time.Below is the process I used for capturing this trip in my travel journal. I am passionate about collecting your memories, but not letting them sit on a shelf. But turning them into inspiration and that inspiration into art.If you would like to move your photos and notes from the page to the canvas of your choice, join me in my course Travel Like An Artist. You will learn how to take the beauty, flavors, colors, ideas and inspiration from your latest trip and turn it into new, unqiue and inspired artwork. Learn more here.
Supplies
- Journal (handmade by Vanessa) (plain option)
- Adhesives: glue stick, tape runner, stapler
- Date stamp and Stazon ink
- Washi tapes
- Watercolor and paintbrush (travel size option)
- Scissors
- Envelope for holding ephemera
- Pens, pencils, markers of your choice
- My favorite: Palamino BlackWing Pencil, Micron Pens
- Cute, small carrying case for all your supplies
Tips
- Have your journal prepped and ready to go, don't waste time and energy creating each page background when you could be traveling, eating or sleeping
- Spend 5 minutes working every night
- Do the least amount possible. Decide what is important for you to document and do, at least, the bare minimum each night so that you have the most important parts recorded. Anything in addition is just gravy ;)
- Keep a generic format for your journaling: date, location, general overview of your day and the highlight.
- Veer off the format and simply write a note about your favorite part of the trip so far or a love letter to a new type of tea you tried and loved.
- Don't over pack. You don't want to be overwhelmed with supplies
- Use those tickets and pretty papers you pick up! Hoarding is not cute or useful
- Throw away papers and things you pick up as you travel. What you think is an absolute necessity today likely wont be tomorrow. I usually always pick up a pamphlet, map, etc everywhere we go and then every few days sort through and toss out the ones that are ugly, boring, useless, duplicates, just too heavy, etc.
- Always buy postcards...
- Get creative. Find ways to use elements, like larger maps or double-sided tickets. Fold things up, only tape them down on one side.
- Keep what is important to YOU. Some people keep receipts, tags, napkins, notes, trash, tickets. It doesn't matter. Whatever you like, staple it in. Some of my favorite things to collect are beer or drink labels, tickets, things in other languages and receipts.
- Be ok with blank space. You don't have to fill the whole journal or every page. This is why having a pre-prepped journal is nice, some pages can speak for themselves.
- It's ok to rip things. I fear, in the moment, ripping something up to use a small portion that I will regret it forever but I never once have. There is still plenty left over to scrapbook with.
- This journal is about journaling, not about being the most beautiful, so let some expectations go.
I hope you enjoyed a peek into our summer and my journal. This book, because of all it's wonkiness and random memories and items always tends to be one of my favorites. These moments that I collected in here are some of my favorite and will last beyond my lifetime because I took the time to stop and write them down.I hope you are inspired to create your own travel journal and to record your memories. I am working on a new class focused on just this, so be sure to sign up for my mailing list to be the first to hear when it is available!