Video credits: Blume via YouTube

You all know that I love to travel within the Philippines, I have blogged almost all of my travel stories and will keep doing that as long as I am capable of. Currently, I still have a lot of travel goals and bucket lists. I have yet to really begin my 2018 travel adventures but soon, I will be stepping on Mindanao again which I am very excited about.

When we talk about travel, these days, it is just so easy to go out and explore without really minding about the means of recovering those memories. What's so good about documenting your travels is the fact that you can turn back time and recall the events that had occurred instead of just really imagining what had happened. Documentation makes it possible for the person who had made it to really freeze that moment plus it also allows the bearer to save that moment because we as much as we want to, our brain is not at all time in its 100% remembering capabilities.

Image edited via Canva credits: Jean Beltran via bitLanders

Image edited via Canva credits: Jean Beltran via bitLanders

So, with that, I would like to share with you the ways of how I document and keep those travel memories alive and how I can recall on what had happened during those moments that I can be able to share it to my loved ones as well as allow me to go back and reminisce those times.

1. BLOGGING

Image edited via Canva credits: Jean Beltran via bitLanders

Why blogging? There are so many things to say when you blog. No limits, its total freedom! The selection of words is actually a result of how the author felt when he or she was in that situation during the experience, that moment that you get to see the beautiful landscape, the beach or the skyscrapers, it all can be typed into web words.

The author can be very exaggerated or can be very plain and simple, straight to the point and be very short in explaining the feelings and the emotion of that event. Or he can be poetic, full of adjective, melodic if possible or rhythmic like songs during the days of King David. It all lies in the hands of the writer.

Image edited via Canva credits: Jean Beltran via bitLanders

Which is why for me, blogging each travel occurrences gives not just a sense of freedom but also a memorabilia which can be made available to everyone on the world wide web. Making it public, sharing it with the entire universe and even earning from it lives out the purpose of why we are all connected in this huge hemisphere.

Image edited via Canva credits: Jean Beltran via bitLanders

My experiences can be a source of information that can also help others in their future travel endeavor or perhaps this can encourage the readers to go out and travel on their own too! In the first place, traveling these days is easier compared to decades ago all due to the web, the millions of blogs on the internet make it all possible to know what to expect, what to do and how to enable things to happen.

2. JOURNALS

Image edited via Canva credits: Jean Beltran via bitLanders

Holding a pen and a paper to write on is one of my goals when traveling. It is because when you go out there and you have information, fact or a belief of the locals in that certain area, the food terms, the local dish which is hard to pronounce, all are hard to memorize when just relying upon my tiny brain.

But travel journals don't just contain important data but it also carries art and embellishments of different kinds. There are stickers, photos, random items like tickets, stamps, etc. These all can contribute to creating a journal page regarding the travel places I've been to on that specific day.

Image edited via Canva credits: Jean Beltran via bitLanders

Although I admit that there are times when journaling is hard to do when on the go. Bringing of the journal notebook plus the pens as well as the other adornments can sometimes become a hassle. In such case, creating the journal can wait at home.

Image edited via Canva credits: Jean Beltran via bitLanders

My phone becomes a workaround for me to draft the journal. When at home, I can have all the means of beautifying the page. When it comes to his type of travel documentation, I become very withdrawn because I don't always want to share what I had added to every single verso as much as possible, I will only share those which doesn't contain private matters. So while the blogs contain safe and very formal things, my journal involves personal and private information plus the artsy side of me becomes very visible here.

3. PHOTO BOOKS

What's traveling without photographs?

Image edited via Canva credits: Jean Beltran via bitLanders

In our generation today, taking photos is always given when going out, even just a walk in the park requires taking numerous multiple images because we don't want to miss out anything. In the missing out anything part, vlogging came into the picture because humans want to document every single event happening in their lives. I am not against vlogging, in fact, I have been following a lot of vloggers on YouTube.

What I am pointing out is the fact that our generation has become very attached to documenting through digital media such as photos and videos.

So, the cliche that says:

"Take a picture or it didn't happen."

Image edited via Canva credits: Jean Beltran via bitLanders

Became each and everyone's motto. But this isn't really wrong at all as long as it doesn't contain only selfies and narcissistic images. Be very creative and explore the place rather than just capturing your own face angles.

Now for the travel documentation part, all those images on my hard drive don't really go to their eternal rest but rather, I would ensure that they get printed into paper, one of which I can flip through and share with my family. The best reason why every single traveler has to turn their images into print is that photographs become really realistic when printed. There's a different feeling or sense when you get to see the image inked into a glossy or matte finish surface.

Plus you don't need electricity or digital storage to reminisce those important occasions. Regardless of the software used or the company embraced for printing the photos, as long as they are in print, photo books are worth the time.

Video credits: Jean Beltran via YouTube

How about you? How do you make sure that your travel stories won't just stay within our brain cells but they get physical, tangible materials to help one recall, remember and reminisce that frozen moment which allows each of the involved individuals to tap and bring back that pure emotion felt during those exact bits?

The next time you travel or if you've gone to a distant relative's place which is new to you, ensure to document it, write it down either on a journal or a blog entry and most especially have your images printed for conservation and memorabilia.

This blog entry was written and published by Jean Beltran-Figues for bitlanders.com.
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