Your travel journal is missing something. If you’ve ever taken a day trip to the next town over to “just get away” or traveled home for the holidays – that’s something worth journaling about! Micro trips are absolute gold for a full and meaningful travel journal.
If you’ve been keeping up with all of the best travel journal tips here at Write Your Wellness, you already know a little bit about this recent travel trend and how it can help your journal. But, trust, there is always more to learn about how you can get creative in your journal.
What is a “Micro-Trip”?
Now, you might be wondering, “What the heck is a micro trip”. While the name is new, the concept is not. A micro trip is simply a small vacation that is well-planned enough to give you some bang for your buck.
If you were the type of kid who went to grandma’s house downstate instead of Disney, congratulations. You’ve already taken dozens of micro trips. It’s squeezing in a road stop at the world’s largest ball of twine or swinging by the Grand Ole Opry when you visit a friend in Nashville for a few days.
It’s under consumption at its finest. You get all the rest and adventure with none of the credit card debt. Who doesn’t want that in this economy?
Why are Journals and Micro Trips are a Great Match
The key to a great micro trip is in the execution. You want to make sure that you fit in as many memories as you can. Journaling makes that sort of planning easy. Here’s how:
Small Goals = Big Motivation
We all love travel bucket lists. But it really sucks when you can’t go to those big-ticket locations year after year. No one wants to look at an empty checklist forever. It can kill your motivation.
That’s why micro trips are perfect. It will always be more achievable to visit a neighboring state than a foreign country halfway across the world. For every major destination, add a few micro trips to your list of places to go. This will keep you motivated to travel and explore instead of fixated on FOMO.
Get All of Your Dreams on Paper
You’d be surprised at how much adventure you can fit into a long weekend. The first step is knowing what you want to do. When you’re just starting to dream up some micro trips, list out everything you might want to do on a generic vacation. Spas, museums, local foods, you name it. Then, Google your destination and see if you can find local spots for each activity.
Make Your Own Tour Package
Some people don’t like strict trip itineraries. Who wants to be told what to do every hour of vacation? If that sounds like you, try designing your own tour package.
Bundle together a few close-by restaurants, activities, and sight seeing locations. For instance, you might want to try shopping around a boardwalk before kayaking on the lake and then eating at a local beach-front brewery. Now that is one tour package that you can mix and match to fit your mood.
Variety is the Spice of Journaling
Unless you are Colin Bridgerton, you probably aren’t traveling the world very often. If you only write about the big trips because “they are the only ones that count”, your journal will suffer. Either A) you’ll fill way too many pages about the same trip or B) it will take you many years to fill your journal. One will be rambly and the other will be awkward.
But neither option will leave you feeling fulfilled. Micro trips offer you the chance to experiment more often and build a great relationship with your journal. Simply put, it keeps things interesting.
20 Journal Prompts for Your Next Micro Trip
If you don’t want all the pressure of picking prompts, look no further. You can get a free Travel Journal Template to download on your phone for on-the-go journaling. It’s a great way to cover the basics during your trip so you can expand on those experiences later.
Speaking of expanding on things later, try these prompts to “unpack” after your trip (see what I did there?):
· What made you choose this location for your micro trip?
· Did this trip do what it needed to [ex: provide rest, fun, adventure, etc.]?
· Would you go back to this spot again if you could?
· Even though you didn’t travel very far, did you experience any culture shock? How so?
· How was the actual road trip, flight, or train ride?
· Who would you recommend this trip to? Why?
· What are 3 ways you can be grateful for this trip when “other people” are able to do more?
· Describe any souvenirs you got. What makes them special?
· If you could re-do the trip, how would you change it?
· Was there any place you wish you had more time to explore?
· How did this trip compare to more expensive trips you’ve taken?
· How was the food different from what your used to? Was this a surprise?
· What’s something you learned about your own country on this trip?
· Did you get a good “bang for your buck” on this trip? Explain.
· What is one lesson you can take back home with you from this trip?
· Did anything go wrong during this trip? What craziness did you get up to?
· Talk about the pictures you took on your trip (bonus points if you glue them in the journal!)
· How did you end up spending your time? Did you follow the “tour packages” or something else?
· What makes a vacation “worth it” to you? Did this trip fit the bill?
· Where are you excited to go next now that this trip is over?
