Discovering yourself and exploring the world

Have you ever returned to a picture of yourself, gathered a  look on your face, and wondered exactly what was going through your mind at the time? 

The art of journaling is being able to keep your thoughts content and secure. Reading over and over memories and feelings you encountered.  Connecting your emotions to paper, being able to picture each interaction as if you were there again. Whether it’s watching the sun rise each morning under the Tuscan trees or watching the Eiffel Tour twinkle at night, jotting down these important moments makes you appreciate them more.

Writing is a unique art, because you are able to create a piece of value, respecting the little things that surround you. Writing about travel gives me gratitude for what surrounds me. Feeling the Tuscan breeze on a clear day jotting down the way the wind hits the trees and how the sun reflects through the bushes. Bringing love letters of travels to life. Reading about people’s travels is a connection of unconditional love as if you are reading letters of love over and over again. Valuing the affection you have for the city and memories that cherish beyond compare.  Respecting the little things that surround you. 

While traveling around the world you are bound to run into experiences that make memories. From experiencing my first night out on the town with my friends cheering to gratitude and new beginnings I am able to picture the details that made this moment special. The gazing of each other’s eyes so the luck would live on forever, or the description of our waiter; jokes and laughter from both sides of the table.

Keeping a travel journal requires dedication and consistency. You have to make sure to carry a journal with you wherever you venture out to. My travel journal allows me to re-experience memories. I always travel with my journal because you never know what you can experience on the next corner. I’ve traveled with my journal on the short bus ride to town and I am glad I did, in that short ten minute bus ride I was able to experience people. Strangers starting up conversations about the day, where they shopped and how the weather has been. On my other bus rides I was able to connect with other NYU students who were upper class men. Chatting about school, dorms and life so far in Florence. So whether it's with friends, or colleagues making your way to a fancy restaurant in the center of Paris, Florence or Berlin, keep your journal with you because you never know what's around the corner.  

Collecting stories as you travel offers  a time to reflect on the connection that you have with yourself, growing from other cultures and others values.  While keeping your preferred notebook it's important to describe the way you think  about the world, and how old you were while you explored out of the country. Age matters while traveling because as we grow older our perspective changes, so to be able to travel back to nineteen will bring back a load of emotions and memories. How you experienced the world, the art,and community of the destinations you encountered. Describing the emotions you felt, the way others see the start to finish; times where you may have been more anxious or more happy than other moments. 

Though traveling can be fun and an experience of a lifetime, it can also cause anxiety, or bring unplanned obstacles. Anxiety is hard to deal with, but having an outlet; somewhere to let go and be yourself makes your situation less intense. Outlets are meant to be your own, a place where you don’t feel judged or out of place.  By writing those feelings down, you are able to release the anxiety from your body onto paper. This will help release all the tension and help yourself to love forward. 

Travel journals don't just have to be writing, they can also include photos, drawings or even doodles of what you see. Pictures that make the moments greater, moments where laughing for a photo was easier than describing on paper. Taking in the pictures of art, people, culture and architecture. Including photos in your travel journal makes the moments more real, having a piece of work that goes with the photo will have you repeating the memory over and over.

So why keep a travel journal? Closing this chapter of my thoughts I encourage you to bring your travels to life, reflecting off the photos of youth and prosperity. Where looking at the photos, doodles, and writings bring you to a telescope; looking through the eyes of your journal. Keep the happiness alive, keep the memories alive.