Traveler’s Notebook Meet-Up at the Studio Shop: Caravan Stamps

We were lucky enough to host the Traveler’s Company Caravan Stamps for its final two weeks in Canada, at the main shop, and for their very last day here in Canada, we celebrated their journey with a meet-up at the studio shop.

Friends gathered with their Traveler’s Notebooks and we shared how we were each using ours and which inserts we were using and how they had changed over time. Iced tea, caravan stamps, old postage stamps, postcards, bullet journalers and regular journalers, a belligerent shop cat, a sleeping baby, fountain pens, washi tape, egg tarts, and all different shades of Traveler’s Notebooks, no two exactly the same.

There is really nothing like having time to sit down and chat and share and laugh with people who are using and loving the same tools as you are. Being with people who understand the problems—blank pages with dated inserts, not enough space, too many inserts, which inserts to use, commitment problems, passport or regular, insert storage, messed up pages—but also the connection you can have when a notebook system is exactly what you need, all the details of it changing as life changes with you.

And the joy of a good stamp.

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I have been using Traveler’s Notebook for years, and over time it has changed and changed again for me. Some seasons have been busier or seemed fuller, and some seasons I’ve embraced a slimmer philosophy, but I’ve always found the versatility and flexibility of the system to fit my life.

This past summer was the first really big trip—just over two months—we’ve been on since opening the shop, and I’ve cherished how my Traveler’s Notebook has become a part of my travelling. But even more so, travelling to Japan this past summer, and meeting some of the people behind the notebook, learning more about the philosophy of the brand and company and seeing how much our values align, has been an inspiration for me.

Let’s just say I’m very much looking forward to what’s to come.

For me personally, everything lined up for our meet-up at the studio shop, even if the timing was a bit tight: the coincidence of the last weeks of our Caravan being at the end of August, and of course wanting to be home in time for the meet-up. It had all seemed fine when we initially planned our trip back much earlier in the year, but all of a sudden in the summer, with everything going on in Hong Kong, and the unpredictability of it, I was a bit worried about making it back from Hong Kong—airports closed, flights cancelled, my flight leaving on Friday, and the meet-up in Canada on Sunday. But! We made it through the airport and over the ocean with no problems other than the hairiness of traveling with kids. It was the best possible re-entry I could’ve asked for, especially as we look ahead to fall and all that comes with a new season.

There really is no place like home. Especially with a good egg tart.