Travel journal prompts
The travel entries worth rereading are almost never the itinerary. They are the price of the coffee, the argument at the station, what the light did at six, and what you thought about while waiting for a train that was late.
How to use these
Answer one a day and the trip writes itself. Tie each entry to a place, not just a date, and put the numbers in: what it cost, how far, how long you waited. Numbers age better than adjectives.
Before you go
Written at the gate or the night before. These are the entries you will be gladdest to have, because they date what you expected.
- What are you hoping this trip gives you, honestly?
- What are you worried about that you have not said out loud?
- What do you expect this place to be like, so you can compare later?
- What are you leaving behind for a week, and are you glad to?
- Who are you travelling with, and what will be easy or hard about that?
- What is in the bag that you will not use, and why did you pack it anyway?
- What did getting here cost, in money and in arranging?
- What would make this a good trip, in one sentence?
The day itself
One of these, written before bed while your feet still hurt, is worth ten written from memory next month.
- Where exactly were you today, and what did it look like at the hour you saw it?
- What did today cost, and what was worth it?
- What did you eat, where, and would you go back?
- Who did you talk to who was not in your group?
- What surprised you, and what did you expect that turned out wrong?
- What was the sound of this place today?
- What went wrong, and how did it actually turn out?
- What is one detail here you would forget by next week if you did not write it down?
After you get home
Write these in the first week back, while the trip is still louder than the laundry.
- What do you keep telling people about, and what have you not mentioned to anyone?
- What did you think this trip would change, and did it?
- What would you do differently, and what would you do exactly the same?
- What is the one image from the trip that arrives on its own?
- What did you bring back that is not an object?
- Where would you go back to, and what for?
- What did being away show you about home?
- If you could keep one hour of this trip, which hour?
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