Inspiration
Where our Travel Journal came from
Aug 2I’m sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor with a giant clear storage box in front of me neatly marked on the top with ‘Martha’s keepsakes’. I have never seen it before, but it soon becomes apparent that my mum has been lovingly filling it since I arrived in the world and storing it away. Now, finally selling the family home she’s lived in for 33 years, the time has come to give it to me.
There are tears when I find the card my dad wrote to her when I was born, laughter at my school reports and slight horror at a bag filled with my hair from when I was ten (why???!). But what fills most of the box is dozens of travel journals.
In an assortment of vintage scrapbooks are my scribbles, pictures, clippings, and drawings from every holiday from the age of four! I am amazed I was even writing then, but there it is in a classic WHSmith jotter from July 1987, my daily diary from a trip to Devon. Musings such as “Tuesday: We sat with our feet in the water and had a lollipop”. Reader, I was only four!
As I get older, the journals get more detailed and more elaborate. From the many books I kept when we lived in Singapore to every holiday after, I’ve painstakingly recorded every detail of what we did, where we went and how I felt.
What is crazy to me is that I remember it all. I remember writing these books, I remember these trips far better than anything else I did when I was younger. I also thoroughly loved doing it. Seeking the perfect mementoes to stick in, saving tickets, postcards, and leaflets along the way, was a total and utter joy.
So much so, I upped my game when left to my own devices during my gap year and wrote and illustrated hundreds of pages of my adventures. Possibly my favourite journals ever, they tell the tale of being left on an island in the South Pacific, teaching local school children, living with no electricity or running water, falling in love with a fellow gapper and having my heart broken. I adore them because they are so raw and honest. It is a year of my life that fundamentally shaped who I am today, captured in a way that no photo ever could.
For me, the magic of travel journaling is that not only does it make you appreciate the places you are visiting so much more, looking at them with appraising eyes, it embeds the memories in your mind brighter and stronger. Whereas most of my childhood from four to nineteen is a bit of a blur, all these trips punctuate the years like vivid bookends.
So, you can imagine what is coming next! We’ve launched a few journals here at Martha Brook all shaped by personal experiences. You loved our Book Journal, then came the Gratitude Journal, IVF Journal, Pregnancy Journal and Gardening Journal. When thinking about what to do next, I just knew it had to be a Travel Journal. The place journaling all started for me.
Behind the scenes, we’ve been hard at work creating something timeless. A place to plan and capture trips, from short to long, and help you create memories that hopefully will last as long as my journals have done. Our new Personalised Travel Journal launches tomorrow at 5pm, and we can’t wait to share it with you!
Thank you for sharing the fascinating journey behind your beautiful travel journal! It’s inspiring to learn about the passion and dedication that went into creating such a meaningful product. Looking forward to embarking on adventures with your journal by our side!