Travel Time!

School's out and Summer is here (it'll be official in less than two weeks)!  For a lots of us, that means packing up the family and taking a trip or two!

For this month's Challenge Chicks' challenge, I'm inviting you to make a project that's travel-related.  I'm working on my Midori Traveler's Notebooks.  I have three going at the moment!  One is for our big Italy trip, and it's got photos, travel brochures, and lots of journaling in it.  The cover is classic, elegant black leather, and I altered the inserts with black and gold designer papers and washi tape.  That one I'll be working on for a while, and I'll be sharing more about it soon.

The inserts are the beauty of the TN set-up, which has elastic bands instead of rings.  You can carry one insert, or add several using special bands, customizing your planner/journal to work just for you.

photo courtesy of The Paper Seahorse

Yesterday I took a trip to Tampa to The Paper Seahorse for a Traveler's Notebook class and a Midori TN Meet-Up.  It was so fun!  I met some incredibly creative, talented journalers.  It felt so great to be with others who are as travelers-notebook-obsessed as I am now, and to listen intently as they spoke of their journaling experiences and recommendations.  The layout about that trip is in my camel-colored leather, standard-sized every-day journal, which contains a page-a-day insert of sketches/watercoloring, photos, stamping, and highlights of my days.

All of the girls at the meet-up signed a postcard, and Tona gave us some stickers and a little cat clip that I wanted to include in my layout.  I also had more pictures from my trip than would fit on my page-a-day format (some refreshing Tito's berry lemonade and a delicious lobster and avocado lunch across the street at Cask Social Kitchen, Paper Seahorse's Traveler's Notebook "heaven" plus our group photo), so I had to find a way to fit all of that in.  I scored the postcard in thirds, then cut a tag the same width as a cover, placing one photo on top, and a coupon and ticket sticker on the back.  When folded, the postcard slides into a band that secures it to the page with the tag hanging freely.  More photos go on the inside of the flip-out title.

My third journal is a smaller Passport-sized journal which currently holds an analog "month-at-a-glance" calendar and some bullet journaling for to-do's, etc.  Most of my schedule goes into my iPhone but there are things that are simpler to keep track of on paper,  and I'm always keeping lists about something!  The big list that I'm working on right now is a packing list, bullet-journal style, that will work for multiple trips.  I'll just washi-tape it to the travel journal in use at the moment so that it's moveable when that journal fills up.  My friend, Hope, and I are headed to Louisiana in a few weeks, and I hope to have my list complete by then for a test-run.

If you are looking for a planning system that is flexible and customizable to fit your needs, that you can simplify to make into something lightweight that will also serve as a take-everywhere-everyday or when-you-travel journal, then I recommend you check out Traveler's Notebooks.