Journaling While Abroad
One of the important tips that our latest guest licensed psychotherapist Jackie Paris gave on the episode “Mental Health Abroad” is of the importance of journaling throughout your trip.
Two of the journals in the photo are from my first two trips. Aside from my passport, they served as my most important travel item. My checklist when moving to a new city was always the same: passport, phone, journal. Everything else was easily replaceable. These journals served as essential processing tools during periods of confusion, growth, and fun. Looking back on them, I can truly see how much I have matured from reading the words of my younger self.
Fun fact: I have been journaling since third grade. And no, my third grade journal will never see the light of day.
Sometimes it is hard to process growth and change when it is all happening so fast.
Journaling will not only make for a wonderful memento from your time abroad, but it will also help you to process events and feelings as they arise in new environments.
And the great thing about journaling is that it has absolutely no rules! Whatever way you like to creatively process is totally up to you! Some of my personal favorite ways to journal while abroad are:
Stream of consciousness: Just write down literally anything that needs to be word barfed down on the page with absolutely no attention to grammar, spelling, or sentence structure.
Poetry: it super doesn’t have to be good because, guess what? No one else will see it but you! So go and make some crappy poems because I promise it feels so good!
Journaling in other languages: When traveling in a country that speaks a different language, try to journal in other languages. What I mean by this is when you learn new words, phrases, etc fill those in place of your native language equivalent on the page. So many of my journal entries traveling while learning Spanish are written in Spanglish.
Voice memos: Sometimes recording your voice to listen back to later is a valuable tool. If you want to give advice to your future self in a momentary epiphany, record some of your poems in your own voice, or just feel too lazy to write, just click record and see what flows.
Draw: Journaling does not just have to be the written word. If you’re good at drawing, or even terrible (I can claim the latter), it can be a wonderful outlet during travel days, relaxing, or before bed during your time abroad.
Scrapbooking: save tickets, photos, cards, anything to tape in that bad boy.
And the best thing about bringing a journal abroad is that you bring it everywhere so it’s supposed to get beat up! My travel journals are ripping, water-logged, and so so loved.
So by the end, if your journal is on the verge of destruction, that’s how I know that it was a good trip.
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