When you are prone over over-packing and over thinking
I love journaling. I also don’t like having to think too much about getting my thoughts down. Especially when all I want to do is unwind after a *long* day of activities.
But I still like having a physical reminder of my holiday, whether it’s a week interstate or long-weekend staycation in my state’s capital.
So… What do I do to make sure that I can adequately capture my trip, but without thinking too much and without lugging everything but the proverbial kitchen sink through the airport?
I make sure that I have a fully stocked journaling kit that can fit into a medium-sized pouch.
Yep. Before I pack for a trip, I make sure that my favourite medium-sized Delfonics pouch is fully stocked with all the things I might want to have to hand for my end-of-day journaling sesh. (Let’s face it, nothing hits quite like the idea of winding down for the evening with your journaling gear laid out in front of you and a helping of tea/wine/some other beverage in hand)
Here are the things that I do to make sure that I am almost never left in the lurch when I want to do a bit of journaling:
Sticker-fy as many of your paper goods as possible
What I mean by this is: apply strips of double sided tape to the back of the decorative paper/ephemera, turning them into giant stickers. When you’re ready to do some journaling, you just need to peel off the backing strips and stick the paper/ephemera into your journal.
If you like to use decorative paper as the background for your journaling spreads, cut a bunch of pieces to the size of your travel journal, leaving a small margin (to make it easier to close the journal). In the case of the larger traveler’s notebook inserts, you’d want to cut your background paper to no larger than 19cm x 9cm.
Tip: for the sake of not having to deal with too many strips of tape backing come journaling time, I suggest going with a medium – wide width double sided tape. 24mm is a good starting point.
Create a “snapshot” of your washi tape collection
When you love washi tape, it’s sorely tempting to pack our entire collection when you travel. But, our luggage can only hold so much.
Before you go, decide which colours/patterns will be your “main” ones and which will be the “accents”. The main colours/patterns will go as a full size roll and the accents will be put on to a washi sample card. For the sake of keeping our travel journaling kits somewhat streamline, I suggest no more than 2 main colours and 5 accents.

Edit your sticker collection
If you love stickers as much as I do, it’s highly likely that you have a sizeable collection sitting at home. But we’re obviously not going to pack the entire thing into our journaling kits.
Instead, what we’re going to do is create an “edit” of our sticker collection. If you want to use individual stickers, a sticker album is a good way to keep them in one place. Should you prefer to take whole sheets, I’d suggest putting them inside some kind of sleeve or pouch. (MUJI’s A5 binder sleeves are really good for this)
Bring a glue stick or enough tape runner refills for your entire trip
You’re bound to collect additional ephemera throughout your trip. And you’re going to want some way of sticking them into your journal. This is why I strongly advocate for including either an acid-free glue stick or a tape runner in your journaling kit. In the case of the latter, you will also want to pack enough tape runner refills to last for your entire trip. *Cue the flash back to my recent trip to Melbourne where I ran out of tape runner refills and had to make an emergency trip to the Eckersley’s Art Store on Swanston St*
Side note: if you are checking your bags, a roll of double-sided tape + scissors is another option.
Include sticky card pockets
Every single one of my trips has involved visiting a lot of restaurants and stores. Which translates to A LOT of business cards. If you are anything like me and aren’t too fond of sticking down business cards, sticky card pockets are a good way of keeping them on display, without really obscuring any information.
Stick to the smallest watercolour palette that you can get away with
This is usually the highly popular 12-pan watercolour palette (roughly the size of an iPhone 15 Plus) that is laid out in 2 rows of 6 half pans. There are also smaller bijou box palettes that can also fit 12, but in a 3×4 configuration. Also, with the not-bijou box palette, it is entirely possible to squeeze in another pan into each row, turning it into a 14 pan palette. With both types of palettes, I strongly advise you to secure the pans with a tiny bit of blu tack or some other temporary adhesive.
As for brushes that you’re going to use, there are 2 routes:
- Waterbrushes. These have an in-built resevoir, thereby eliminating the need for a separate water pot.
- Travel brushes. These usually have a cap to protect the bristles when they’re not in use. But, as these more closely ressemble ‘traditional’ watercolour brushes than waterbrushes, you will need to either pack a water cup of your own or make use of the hotel’s glassware.
I didn’t mention the ‘traditional’ watercolour brush because our goal here is to stay as streamline as we can and the traditional brush will require its own container or wrap to protect its bristles.
Regardless of which brush set up you choose, please, please, please only fill up your waterbrushes/water pots once you’ve cleared security.
City destinations only: print out your photos at the nearest office supply store or photo shop
If you are traveling to another major city, there will be at least a few stores that offer photo-printing services. For Australians, that would be our nearest Officeworks.
A few tips when printing photos at Officeworks:
- stick to the 6×4 prints. These are the cheapest option.
- use the ‘transfer via wifi’ option to load your photos on to the self serve kiosk. I’ve had more than a few issues with transferring my photos via the USB connection. The wifi option is so much easier to deal with.
Note: For those of you who swear by your portable photo printers, please keep in mind that you’re going to need a separate pouch for it and the film catridges.
Really edit your writing tools
For the average journaler, you’re probably going to use no more than 1 or 2 different pens for the bulk of your journaling. Plus, perhaps, 1 or 2 colour pens for accents. If you are going to do some sketching in your travel journal, include a mechnical pencil, a pack of refills and an eraser. If you are using a retractable eraser, you will want to pack a set of refills to go with that.
If you are on the more creative side, I suggest sticking to a very limited palette for your coloured pens.
If you have any tips you’d like to share, please leave them in the comments below!
Happy journaling,
Anna