How To: Create Your Digital Travel Photo Journal

Guest Post

You can tell a story, but a picture is worth a thousand words. Isn’t that the popular saying? While I don’t usually believe such sentiments, this is one I can get behind. Pictures are, indeed, a much celebrated form of transporting the viewer to an event, or making them feel a connection to what or who they are viewing.

This is why travel photos are such wonderful things. You can show others what you saw and include them in the experience. Thanks to digital camera, camera phones and social media, it is easier than ever to do so. Showing travel photos to friends, family and for our own enjoyment are second nature these days. It is a nice change from the dreaded vacation slideshow “parties” that used to be common place.

A great way to showcase your travel photos and give people a real impression of your amazing trip is by creating a travel photo journal. By making it digital, you will be able to share it with friends and family all over the world.

Here are some tips for making your own, from prep work to the finished project.

Getting What You Need

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Get a scanner

This is a must have for anyone. Not everything you put into your travel journal will be a photo you took. You might want to show off postcards you found/sent, receipts, ticket stubs, menus, brochures, physical pictures or anything else you can think of. Having a scanner is an easy way to get a copy online to use.

Find a good file hosting service

You will probably make your own website, blog or photo collages. But an image hosting site will let you back things up, easily embed pictures and otherwise keep a record of what you upload for use later. All in a safe place, and usually for free.

Take a ton of shots

Not all of your pictures are going to go into your travel journal. Thanks to digital cameras and SD cards for expanding storage, you don’t have to worry about running out of film, either. Go nuts, and take as many pictures as you like.

Organizing Your Items

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Start sorting

Now it is time to start organizing what you have, and deciding on what will be included. Take out your favorite pictures, and those other things you gathered that you want to include. Keep in mind that a digital journal has no limit to size, so don’t be afraid to use a lot.

Decide on a format

I favor blogs for travel journals. They are easy to use, share and have next to infinite space. Plus, it can be kept with other things, like travel journal posts of other trips, special events and anything else you might feel like sharing. However, other people use special domain websites they buy, or their social media profile. You can even create a page by page digital scrapbook using Photoshop, GIMP or other photo editing software. Or make a slideshow.

Make Your Journal

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Put it all together

All that is left is to get all of the pieces together, make the pages and create your digital travel journal. This is the best part, after the trip itself of course. What is great about a digital version of this idea is that you don’t have to worry about mistakes. Anything can be changed or fixed, or updated.

Share it with friends

Post on your Facebook, Twitter or even put it all on Pinterest. There is no limit to who you can show you travel journal to.

Make a physical copy

While I love the web, I am an old fashioned girl at heart. I like having a tangible copy of my memories. That is why I always take the original items I was going to include, use a photo printing site like Snapfish to get copies of my photos, and make a real journal. There is no reason you can’t have both.

Jessy is an aspiring blogger for Dobovo, the free tool to pick Kiev accommodation (and the trusted one!)

Image Credits: 1, 2, 3.

12 Comments

  1. I try to take way more photos than I need because some of them inevitably don’t come out like I thought they would. These are some great suggestions.

  2. I’ve been creating photo journals too (but not online, rather as books)…I love it, it tells a story to the viewer of special times or events.

  3. This all makes me want to go on a trip somewhere!

  4. I agree, having a physical backup is just as important as having a second roll of TP close, lol You never know! 🙂 Nice article

  5. Great tips. I need to get started on this. I’ve already started storing my photos in a cloud, now I need to organize and make my books.

  6. journaling and being able to get your ideas out of your head and into a device where you can organize your thoughts can change how you look at, and organize your thoughts in a more meaningful way. I’d like to note, for you Ipad users out there that my company (Bespin Holdings) has recently recently purchased a highly utilized app called Maxjournal for iPad. We decided we wanted to make it FREE. (no strings attached, it already has a large following and good user base with over 60K downloads in the last two weeks alone) Want to journal on your iPad, here you go, you can’t argue with the price!

    http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/maxjournal-for-ipad/id364907090?mt=8

    We have decided to change the price from 2.99 to FREE, in order to promote users downloading and getting used to the elegance and feel of working with apps you will be seeing from our subsidiary, bigbluecouch(tm). Bugs and updates we release will also be free so go download it now if you wanna have a looksee, we’d love your feedback. From your iPad just go to this link and its yours.

    http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/maxjournal-for-ipad/id364907090?mt=8

    Sincereley, Mat Rhoades, Bespin Holdings, Inc.

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