Keeping a journal helps you make sense of the journey (with Lavinia Spalding)

Deviate with Rolf Potts

“A travel journal helps you remember more than what you did and saw. It will helps you remember how you became the person you are today.” –Lavinia Spalding

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Lavinia talk about the section of Rolf’s book The Vagabond’s Way that touches on travel journaling, what what purposes a travel journal can serve (1:30); how journals give you perspective on the person you used to be, and how the journaling habit develops over time (9:00); strategies for being vulnerable and honest in a travel journal (15:00); strategies for being consistent with a journal on the road (19:00); employing non-visual senses and evoking less-than-ideal experiences to capture more subtle textures in a travel journal (25:30); how a journal gives you a pretext to approach and even interview people who interest you on the road (33:00); how to take notes in the field, how to maintain an ongoing relationship with old travel journals, and why travel journals serve to make a journey more meaningful (41:00).

Lavinia Spalding (@laviniaspalding) is a travel writer and series editor of The Best Women’s Travel Writing. She has author of Writing Away, and co-author of With a Measure of Grace and This Immeasurable Place. For more about Lavinia, check out http://laviniaspalding.com/.

Notable Links:

• Jack London (novelist and journalist)
• Busan (city in South Korea)
• Before Sunrise (1995 Richard Linklater movie)
• Bullet journal (method of note-taking)
• Clove cigarettes
• Rainer Maria Rilke (Austrian poet)
• Khentrul Lodro Thaye Rinpoche (Buddhist lama)
• Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (children’s song)
• Vagabonding, by Rolf Potts (book)
• Travel Writing and Global Change (TEDx talk by Lavinia Spalding)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

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