A journal is not usually meant to be a book, unless you start off writing it like one. Rather, most are notes and comments to yourself. But you can transform these notes and comments into an interesting book of stories of your travels. When my sister and I and our daughters went to Japan for a week and a half back in 2015, I brought along my printed itinerary full of details for us and kept a tiny spiral notebook of where we went on each day, sometimes adding short comments. After a few years of recovering from my exhausting challenge as tour guide with rudimentary Japanese language skills, I decided to make a memory book of this trip just for those of us who went, although my dad and a friend or two wanted copies and had a laugh reading My Crazy Trip to Japan which documented all the mishaps, being lost, we moms chasing after our speed-walking daughters else we get detached from our pocket WiFi signal, getting off at the wrong train station to meet non-English-speaking cousins for the first time . . . . I used Lulu.com to publish with option of no public sales.

I used my itinerary printout, brochures we picked up, online research, and my short notes along with my memory to write a flowing story that included cultural and historical details to give a bigger picture of what we did and where we went. I included a handful of photos that helped tell the stories of us. Photos are important because mostly they will be forgotten about unless they’re in a book.

Recently I worked typing up someone else’s travel journal that was actually written in a kind of story form documenting each day. Kudos to her! But still, as I typed and did research to make sure all the foreign place names were spelled correctly, I learned a lot about these places and suggested the person add more details for better description and understanding of significances. No need to stick rigidly with only what was written. While a travel memories book is mostly for the travelers, it could also be a fun read for children, grandchildren, and other family, including future generations, so adding explanations would be important. Write for your future readers! In this case, the lengthy time of multi-country travels with children was incredible and a whirlwind of adventures.

For a great travel memoir, read Carrie Riseley’s delightful Smiles and Spices: Journeys and Encounters in East Asia, or one of her other travel memoirs, while you relax in your comfy chair at home.