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How Should I Document My Travels?

Dear Rolf,

My fiancée and I are embarking on a six-month trip to Asia and I have one big question: What is the best way to document a long trip? I tried carrying a laptop for a weekend trip, and it was burdensome, to say the least. Can I count on myself to go to Internet cafes and be disciplined enough to document my trip thoroughly? Overall it just seems so much easier to log the trip on a small laptop, but your mantra has always been to pack light and leave the gadgets behind. What do you think?

-- Nick, San Francisco

Dear Nick,

Documenting your journey is really a matter of personal taste. Some people use pen and paper journals, which double as scrapbooks, and are a good memento of the experience. I haven’t done this in ages, however, since (in addition to the fact that these can be lost) I type much faster than I write, and I like to have my material easily transferable and easily backed up.

That said, I keep hand-written notes when I travel, on small plastic-bound notebooks that fit into my pocket. Then I use these notes to write travel stories or remember details.

I might recommend getting a very small laptop (with wireless card), if you don’t mind the expense. That way it’s not physically cumbersome. The only drawback is the psychic one, since you don’t want to spend all your travel time farting around on your computer.

My final thought is that, as you imply, Internet cafes are everywhere in Asia. They can be a good alternative, if you don’t mind tapping in journal entries in noisy rooms full of people. Just save your journals (and photos) as blogs or e-mail drafts.

Again, it’s just a matter of finding a personal preference—and not letting your journal/computer suck away all your prime travel time.

Columnist Rolf Potts is the author of Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel.

Send your questions to . If you want to know whether Rolf has already answered your questions, see the Ask Rolf archive.

Just a thought- My husband and I are taking an extended trip to China.  I too wanted to keep a journal - but I tend to loose focus about half way thru a trip - so I invested in a digital voice recorder that only weighs a couple of ounces and has about ninty hours of recording time.  It also has the capaciy to transfer from recorder to computer text.

Here’s another thought. Send an email. Remember how postcards to loved ones back home speak to the moment? There isn’t much room on them to lavish over the late plane all forgotten once you’ve seen how nice your hotel is. An email is a promise to yourself, to be quick, make your point, you even writein shorthand because that’s how we do email, isn’t it? Promising yourself a cup of coffee on your trip every day at 4:00 is being good to yourself. You can have a cup of coffee at an Internet cafe just as easily as any where else. Remember, you are on vacation. Treat yourself to a rest! Then, send your email to your travel secretary, Prairie Business Partners LLC and when you get home, you’ll have a draft journal of days’ events waiting for you in your email in-box, formatted and waiting for your embellishments, pictures, etc.
Prairie Business Partners LLC is a company providing secretaries to travelers. From powerpoint presentations for business travelers to travel logs for recreational travelers.
Good traveling!

Congrats on the trip - and the foresight to keep a journal. I’ve got journals from 25 years ago that take me back to each and every day of a trip. The most important thing is to writesomething each day, and try to limit having to “catch up” on days you couldn’t write. My best tip is that while you do want to remember where you went & what you saw, years later that will become less interesting. Writeabout the sounds, the smells, the senses of where you go, and how the most common things are different than what you are used to. The most ordinary of things are what you will value.
My preference is written journals in small 5x7 artist’s sketchbooks. Take a roll of acid free tape to mount things, and expect ticket stubs to turn brown & stain pages in just a few years. Don’t mount stuff in close to the spine - that will eventually tear the book apart whenever it is tightly closed. Do sketches.
I like the feel of a book, though I’m currently scanning them to digital so I can combine them with the photos I took, if that tells you anything. Take pictures of menus, tickets & motel rooms. Once you put it all together look into the online companies that do small scale book printing, and get everything bound in a book you can read 30 years from now.

Wow, Craig has some really creative ideas!  I’m not sure I’m so industrious.  I still love the idea of writing on paper with a pen, which I did as recently as a trip to Belize in 2006.  When I leave on my RTW trip, I’m going to have to find a healthy balance between updating my blog in internet cafes and taking a break from computers and technology in general.  As much as I’d like the freedom of a laptop, I don’t think I can prioritize that above traveling light.

The trick is to find a way to documentyour trip without TAKING OVER your trip.
Sometimes people get caught up in taking photos or taking notes that they miss out on the experience altogether.

Wow, Craig has some really creative ideas!  I’m not sure I’m so industrious.  I still love the idea of writing on paper with a pen, which I did as recently as a trip to Belize in 2006.  When I leave on my RTW trip, I’m going to have to find a healthy balance between updating my blog in internet cafes and taking a break from computers and technology in general.  As much as I’d like the freedom of a laptop, I don’t think I can prioritize that above traveling light.

Thanks for the suggestion. ;)

I’d go for good old fashioned pen and paper every time.