In the past year, my family of five has flown across an ocean, made our way through Europe by plane, train and car to visit no fewer than six countries. In all the travels, it wasn’t until our trip to Sicily that I discovered my new must have travel item for kids: a travel journal.
This probably isn’t travel essential you were expecting but now that we’ve started the tradition of journaling our trips, I know we won’t travel without them. It all started when I put together the kids’ backpacks for our flight and I packed the Mead Primary Journal for my son and a blank spiral notebook for my daughter. I figured they’d be good for the plane and didn’t think much beyond that. But one day we sat down at the table in our hotel for quiet time during Max’s nap and I told the kids to write and draw about what we’d done that day.
We did it every day on the trip after that. And a tradition was born! My favorite entry from our Sicily trip is what my son wrote about losing his tooth!
Having the kids journal every day is a great way to unwind and spend quiet time during travel. It helps to create a little routine when things are most certainly out of the ordinary. In addition to capturing fun memories, it’s also tracks your child’s progress. I can’t believe how much my son’s penmanship and sentence structure have improved since that page less than 3 months ago.
Travel Journals for Kids
Both my kids now use a Mead Primary Journal (about $5) as their “travel journal”. We like it because each page has a space for drawing at the top and the bottom is lined for writing.
Here are three more options if you’re looking for something geared specifically towards travel and with prompts to help your child capture trip memories.
My Vacation Journal (4yrs+) ($6.99)
Kids’ Travel Journal ($9.99)
I Was Here: A Travel Journal for the Curious Minded ($11.50)
Happy journaling.
Brandy
March 8, 2013Travel journals are a great idea! I love the idea of them documenting their own journies.
Janet W.
March 12, 2013What a wonderful idea! It reinforces writing and drawing and lets them create a lasting memory!
Greta from kidaporter.com
March 13, 2013I like this !!!!! what a neat idea! you could even stick nice memorable things in the journal as well.
We need to get one for our upcoming vacation now as well
Tiff @ Babes and Kids
March 19, 2013This is such a great idea! Your kids are going to love looking back on them.
Maggie
March 21, 2013I love the ‘I Was Here’ one. What a great idea – that will be such a great memento for them when they are older. I will have Theo do that when we travel once he can write.
Corrie
March 26, 2013Love this! What a great idea!
Amy
April 10, 2013I always had journals for my 2 children. I even had special ones made for them. They mainly consisted of plain paper and drawing, but we have the primary journals too. Now a few years later they love looking at their pictures and trying to decipher what they wrote. They are keepsakes for sure.
Alicia
April 20, 2013Thanks for the great ideas! My kids are just learning to write so they will love the travel journal, I’m going to give it a try on Memorial Day Weekend!
Jane
April 22, 2013Great way to work on developmental skills while going on vacation!