Plan With Me: Travel Bullet Journal

Contributor: Chelsy Wong @wonderjournals @wongchelsy

The Bullet Journal System is a way of helping you track your past, organize your present, and plan for your future. It can be anything you want it to be – a diary, to do list, a sketchbook, or planner.

A bullet journal can be optimized in lots of productive and fun ways. As for me, I use a bullet journal to maximize my productivity in order to achieve my goals. It also helps me track habits, events, activities and ultimately, I use it as a medium to improve my artistic aspirations.

This year, I had the opportunity to travel to a lot of new places. I have to admit, I wish I started this travel bullet journal earlier because it is really useful and fun to look back on the memories made while traveling. Thankfully, I was given this wonderful opportunity by Kristen and Ale Wild Wonder to share how to make a travel journal.

I have a new trip coming up and I think this is the perfect time to plan for it, and record everything in a travel journal. If you are planning for a trip soon, join me as I set up a Travel Bullet Journal!

Reminder: A Bullet Journal should, above all else, be useful. Your travel bullet journal should make your life easier, rather it than being a burden. Do not feel pressured into thinking that your travel bullet journal might not be as ‘artsy’ or detailed as a daily bullet journal, I believe that being a bullet journalist allows you to appreciate your own work no matter how it turns out. Embrace mistakes for it will help you grow.

There is a “Plan With Me” Video at the bottom of this post, so feel free to scroll down and watch the video.

Let’s get started! Here are some page ideas to get you started with your travel bullet journal:

– Cover Page to make it more personalized to your trip, and just to make it more fun. This is optional and it doesn’t have to be as artsy as mine. If you’re not a big drawer, you can print out pictures or stick out some stickers related to travel or the place you’ll be going.

– Year at a Glance to provide an overview of the whole year.

– Events Page/Future Log to log all your planned travels and important events. It keeps all of your future events in one place. Anything that occurs in future months such as birthdays, holidays, trips, meetings, and more would go in the Future Log. It’s a simple and easy place to flip to when you need to check when a specific event is happening.

– Travel Vision Board to help you lay out and visualize your travel goals. A Travel Vision Board can be a collection of words, doodles, photos, etc. that represent your aspirations. The travel vision board will act as a source of inspiration and is a great way to prompt action and keep your goals at the front of your mind.

– Travel Tracker to help you track down all the places you’ve already visited. You can either print out a map template and paste it in your page, or draw your own. 

– To-Do List before travel to prepare the things you want to finish before leaving on vacation or things you need to be reminded before the travel.         

Some examples of “to do’s” include:

-Check if passport and any other travel documents are updated

-File leave from work

-Research and book flights and other transports such as buses, trains and/or airport transfers.

-Look up and book the best accommodation

-Find and book any local tours or experiences you want to do

-Exchange money into local currency

-Create a packing list

-Pack bags

-Get travel adapters

-Create a Travel Itinerary

– Packing List to help you not forget all the things needed to be packed for the trip with its own key to group things according to which bag it belongs. You may customize the key to your own preferences.

– Flight and Accommodation Info Page to list the important details of flights, especially if it’s many flights! The Accommodation Info Page is also helpful in writing down all the key information for your booked hotel/airBnb or other accommodation.

– Travel Countdown to keep the excitement and bring joy every day until you reach the DAY!

– Travel Budget Page to keep us accountable for our spending. This will also help compare how much overspending or underspending you’ve done for your trip!

– Travel Itinerary to lay out the number of days of your trip, and to write down the details of where you are going, and what activities you have planned for each day. It includes the dates, locations, and leaves room for a list of where you want to go! Make a simple itinerary to describe when you are doing certain activities or when certain attractions/restaurants are best to visit. It’s such a great way to make sure you don’t miss the things you really want to do and see in a place.

– Daily Travel Diary to allow you to capture more memories and details about each day. This feels like a scrapbooking activity where you put together pictures, stickers, drawings, travel mementos and write about it in more detail.

That’s it! These are just some of the pages to get your Travel Bullet Journal started. Remember that you don’t need to be an amazing artist to get the benefits of travel bullet journaling. I encourage you to just START and challenge yourself to do this pages, not exactly as I did it, but how you express it in your own way.

Here are some tips to help you create the journal pages of your artistic dreams.

-Browse online for more inspiration. There are plenty of references to learn from. Go check out YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest to see bullet journal spreads.

Pinterest

 

Instagram

YouTube

If you lack confidence in your drawing abilities, start drafting everything you want to draw in pencil first then go over with pen and markers afterwards. That way, you can erase and improve until you’re happy with the result.

Thank you and happy bullet journaling! ?

Chelsy Wong

You can follow Chelsy on Instagram at @wonderjournals and @wongchelsy, and on here new YouTube channel HERE.