When we travel, we often feel that pictures and souvenirs are enough to help us remember our trip. Unfortunately, the day-to-day emotions and feelings cannot be fully captured by a lens, or a local trinket. To ensure that the memories of your trip don't turn into a drunken/sleep deprived haze once you return, it can help to keep a journal!
Keeping a journal may seem like something your little sister would do, but trust me, you will be thanking yourself later. A journal can help capture the moments that are long forgotten once you arrive home. Whether it is the name of the guy who sold you fruit in the local market, or a self-revelation that occurred on the beach, a journal will contain it all! Fundamentally, it will come to represent your thoughts, feelings, and fears in a way that pictures and souvenirs cannot. It will be representative of how you see the world and how the world sees you. Getting into this mode of introspection may be difficult for some, so it can help to begin your journal as a travel log. Simply keep track of the places you go and the things that you see. By not over-thinking the process, you will be surprised as to how naturally your journal becomes an extension of your consciousness.
This point is, by no means, an invitation to bury your mind in a journal as opposed to physically taking everything in. At some point, some memories and experiences are best left where they were found, so trying to “record” every little thing you see or do can be taxing and a waste of time. Let it come naturally and don't force yourself to write anything because you think you have to. You will be surprised at what you can learn about yourself and your surroundings by writing some things down...
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