Travel Journalling with Kids

 

While in Taiwan, Naomi had taken to starting her journal entries: “Once upon a time in Taiwan…” Which was wonderful! And funny and quirky and so totally Naomi.

 

If you’re traveling with kids who are able to write, travel journaling is such a wonderful, low-key, and basically free activity that leaves everyone with a really special souvenir of their trip.

 

Even if your kids aren’t able to write, you can still print out a photo or tape in an item, and write down what they tell you about that photo or place or event, and they can look back and remember their trip as well. For kids who are just beginning writers, like Naomi, I went over her page with her, and fixed spelling mistakes or re-wrote sentences while it was still fresh in her mind, so we could be sure to have a legible version to keep. It’s not that I’m keen for her spelling to be perfect, but that sometimes her spelling was so far off that not even she could decipher what she wrote.

 

 

That being said, unless you have a really special kid, it’s something, as a parent or an adult, that you sort of have to “make” your kids do. Far be it for me to take upon my shoulders once again the mantle of tiger mom, and maybe your kids don’t actually want to do it, but if your kids are willing, it’s a gift that you can give them—a journal of their own words and memories of an adventure they’ve gone on.

 

And while it is something that you have to encourage and cajole and prepare them to do, it can also be fun! I think especially if you do it together, or it’s something your kids can join you with doing, with their own little case of supplies, or their own little pouch of tickets and pamphlets accumulated over the days.

 

For this trip, in addition to their pencil cases which I packed with a few fun tools and supplies just for this trip, my two kids each had a Midori MD notebook with a plastic case, and they kept extra bits from the road in the back plastic flap of their journals to put in their pages later. I only brought one Midori notebook for each of them, but they both filled up each of theirs and I had to buy a new one for them here in Taipei.

 

 

I find it’s really helpful to have additional things to add into the kids journals besides just writing, because it’s fun, it helps bulk the notebooks up, and makes the pages go faster. My kids are, I think, about average, which is to say that they’re not Steinbeck with a dozen Blackwings sharpened for the day. There is a definite limit to how much they want to write about, and it’s easier to write when there are concrete things on the page, an image or a souvenir, to write about. Or even just washi tape and stamps! For example, a bubble tea stamp that they could use whenever we got a bubble tea, or tearing up a bit of a paper bag from a shop we visited.

 

And, the more they see the pages filling up with photos and scraps of things, the more motivating it is to feel how much they’ve already done. It’s satisfying for both kids and adults alike.

 

Here are some things that we did in our journals on this trip in particular:

 

1. Collect metro station or souvenir stamps. In Taiwan and in many Asian countries, they’re available in subway stations, libraries, museums…
2. We got a memo pad from a local stationery shop, but post-it notes or small pieces of paper would also work. I picked a topic, like an event or a subject like our hotel, or a person, and we would all write three things we like or are grateful for about that topic. Then we glued in the little memo page.
3. Catalogue new stationery that we get as a family, by using the stamp or taping in a bit of the new tape (haha! But really for real.).
4. The kids pick out a photo to print out, not necessarily from that day, with something they want to write about (it’s never what I think it’s going to be).
5. I assign a specific topic, such as the book they’re reading, their favourite food or meal so far, how to ride the metro. This works better for Caleb (9), but it’s not bad for Naomi (6) either—however I didn’t do this one too often because they usually had things they preferred to write about from the day already.

 

 

In any case, if you have kids, I hope you consider it. It takes a bit of planning, and, more arduously, it requires considerable muscling while out on a probably already-exhausting-enough journey. And yet! It could be a nice balance of activities while you’re out and on the go. Kids naturally (or so I tell myself) are creative and like having a little journal of their own thoughts and memories, and in the midst of all the trekking and museums and new foods, the downtime is great for everyone.

 

And also, a journal of their adventures might turn out to be something the kids really cherish.