Things I love today: Colored pencils

I rarely travel without packing an unlined journal, a glue stick, a good dark pen and a set of colored pencils. I started keeping these trip journals on a family trip to Alaska many years ago. The formula is always the same: I draw small pictures of the things I’ve seen, write about adventures and paste in items like train tickets, flowers and receipts.

After a few years, I now have big books of memories from trips to Italy, Ireland, France, Spain, Greece, China, Costa Rica and Argentina. One glance inside and I am taken straight back on vacation! I consider it an investment in my mental health as a future bored old woman in a retirement home.

I think I’ll take my well-traveled colored pencils to Santa Cruz this weekend and to Hayfork the next weekend. There’s some room in the back of other journals that I can fill in with a few memories. Not sure how to start your trip journal? Look to One Special Summer or one of Bemelman‘s travel books for inspiration.