Grab a travel journal that has both lined and blank pages, find and unleash your "little kid" excitement for collecting things, and off you go!

What qualifies for this kind of adventure, you ask?

Most definitely the words "travel journal" sound like you are going on a vacation --- so let’s say you are. For years you have probably been doing these things:

•  dreaming of visiting a particular place
  

•  cutting and filing away articles about it
  

•  gathering information from newspapers and magazines
  

•  ordering numerous catalogues from travel companies
  

•  researching it at the library
  

•  spending hours online reading about it 
  

During this same time, have your ears perked up every time someone mentioned the place … did you surprise yourself in overcoming your usual shyness, leaned forward and asked questions?

Would it be safe to say you have "mentally" visited the place, now you are so primed and yearning to "physically" experience the people, the culture, the aromas, the historical sites, the food unique to the region, and everything else awaiting you?

You are ready to immerse yourself … to feel the differences and the similarities.

On this type of vacation, you might choose to "leave yourself at home" so you can embody a fresh understanding. An expansion of you certainly would mean life-altering growth.

You would not come home the same person, would you?

When taking in so many new things, our minds handle this moment by moment, falsely convincing us that we shall remember it all later. Our mind shouts, "Bring it on, there is room for more!!!"

You & I both know that it is not about the space, the capacity, to "take it in" that is our challenge. It is our ability later to "pull it back out", to recall these fantastic, special moments that is our challenge.

(My eyes closed and my shoulders dropped in relief the other day when I heard a doctor, who specializes in dementia & Alzheimer’s, be adamant the audience accept the FACT that it is NORMAL not to be able to recall details. I liked her definition of the time to call her for a consultation when I find myself, or someone I love, putting the car keys in the refrigerator.)

Doctor, that's a deal!

However, this very minute, we all need to face the FACT you, the expert doctor, bluntly put to us: we FORGET.

And Life proves you right!

How many vacations, fabulous vacations, have we taken and cannot retrieve from our memory banks? We can't even find our deposit slips.

(Do you hear the trumpets? Or, the beating of the drums? Listen ……….)

Your dreaming of, participating-in, paying-for, poof-gone vacations can be a thing of your past …

Today there is a new kind of travel journal which will become your best friend on a trip. It combines comfortably spaced lines on the right pages and blank pages on the left, plus other features that help you collect goodies.

The lined pages persuade your pen to write down just a few descriptive words about what you are experiencing (smelling, feeling, hearing, tasting, seeing), which, for sure, will quickly spark your memory, with all the emotions any future time when you read your words.

The blank pages draw you to place mementos, stamps, menu bits, literally any item which will represent of that time. And, the artist in you can come out to sketch, paint or doodle. Some of your snapshots can easily be added when you return home.

With a journal like this kind, it is time for you to tap back into your "little kid" enthusiasm for gathering goodies.

Good-bye to lost travel memories. Hello to fun living and capturing your vacation in a new kind of travel journal that is also a scrapbook!