Are you preparing to head off on your travels knowing you will want to keep your own personal record of the meaningful events on the road?

It’s easy to get carried away with the excitement of your trip and lose focus on your writing. So just how do you keep your focus and produce fine journal entries every time you sit down to write?

Here’s 5 key tips for writing your travel journal to the best of your ability:

1. Show some passion

In order to make your writing engaging to others it’s always a great idea to find a topic or something that happened on your travels that fills you with a great sense of passion. Whether it is anger, joy, frustration or any other emotion, if it triggers some passion you should write it down. You may even find the words will flow out of you much easier.

2. Be selective

Many people writing their travel journals fall into the trap of thinking that every detail counts. Not only is it often dull for others to read, but it will soon become a stale approach to writing. Be selective and perhaps only write about those occasions where something really moved you or something extraordinary happened. You will find if you are more selective not only will you display a great deal of passion in your writing but readers will also feel much more part of your journey.

3. Be aware of your audience

Don’t just write your journal for yourself think about who is reading it. Sometimes this may mean that you have to go a little out of the way to explain something that people back home might not know about. By doing so it’ll make your writing much more accessible.

4. Instill some intrigue and then resolve

Think about the structure of your journal entry. Don’t just blurt out the most exciting part of the story at the beginning, but perhaps allude to it and instill some intrigue to keep the reader engaged right until the final word. It can be very effective to use this within the title of the entry. Towards the end of the entry wrap up the piece and answer the question that was asked at the beginning.

5. Paint a picture

Be descriptive and remember the sights, smells, atmosphere and the sounds. Paint a picture and always attempt to take the reader to the place you were when the story happened. You should aim to take the reader with you on your journey by describing the unique scene and try to stay away from simply stating facts or your itinary.

It can be very rewarding keeping a journal whilst traveling. Often many people will give up after finding it frustrating documenting all the places they have been to and all the different sights they have seen.

The key is to keep it fresh and passionate, this will sometimes mean you have to be more selective about what you write or publish but in the end the rewards for your readers will be much greater.