A travel journal is one of the best ways to preserve memories of a long voyage. Years later you can read your travel journal and enjoy reflecting on long forgotten experiences in far off places. Many details that don't seem terribly important while you are writing your travel journal often turn out to be the color and texture that made the trip so memorable.
Buy a high quality sturdy travel journal. A pamphlet that is held together by staples will fall apart in days. Be sure your travel journal is bound like a book. Hard bound travel journals are the best. It doesn't need to be printed as a travel journal. It just has to be a book with a lot of empty pages.
Get in the habit of writing in your travel journal every day. When you are on a busy journey it is easy to forget to write. You will regret this later when priceless memories are forgotten. You may promise yourself that you will go back and write about your experiences later, but that almost never happens. Take a few minutes every day and jot down your memories. It doesn't have to be long, just on a regular basis.
Use your "down time" for your travel journal. There is a surprising amount of sitting around while traveling. You can always jot down a few lines in your travel journal when you are on trains, waiting for planes, drying your laundry, or waiting in line.
Date your entries in your travel journal. In your heading write down the day, where you are, who you are with, maybe even the weather and what you ate that day. These are the first details people tend to forget. Years later when you read your journal you will know exactly what you were doing on that day. The memories will come rushing back.
Focus on writing about how you feel. Listing facts and figures is fine but that isn't why you traveled. A long journey is a time for contemplation and self reflection. Being in a foreign environment heightens emotions and reactions. Memories of these feelings fade quickly with time. Writing about those experiences while the memories are fresh is essential.
Make lists. Travel often inspires more travel. Make a list of places you want to go next. Try a list of the most unusual experiences on your trip. Describe the ten most interesting people you encountered. You decide what to list. List making not only prioritizes your experiences, it also forces you to think about them in relation to each other.
Keep ticket stubs. Whenever you use a ticket for a train or museum or ride, tape the stub to your journal. Also keep candy wrappers, brochures and receipts. They are pieces of history from your journey. They also contain valuable information that you may not appreciate at the time. Years later you can look at the ticket stub and see exactly what you were doing on a specific day and how much it cost.
