Travel Reflections Visual Template 🧳
While it feels like you’ll never forget your latest trip 😄 …actually, you will. Or at least the details will get hazier as you re-enter into your everyday life. Download and print our new Travel Reflection Visual Template for a fun and easy way to really bring the experience home with you!
What are You Bringing Home with You?
When you take a few minutes to crystalize the experiences of your trip, you enrich your travels and bring home much more. I use a page in the back of every travel journal for reflection -- and I always surprise myself with the realizations I bring home with me!
Make Your Future Self Really Happy
Besides teaching you a lot about the places and the people you visit, traveling teaches you lots about what works —and doesn’t—for you as a traveler. But the time between trips is usually the perfect length to forget that wisdom before your next trip! So you remember what you should have brought/planned/anticipated half way through your next trip instead of beforehand when you could have done something about it. 😂 Instead of kicking yourself, capture what you wish you'd known -- where it can help you plan your next trip better. In the business world it's called continuous improvement - but I just call it “making your future self really happy”!
Be Here Now
While intentional reflection is an excellent way to better remember your experiences and thread your learnings into the future, the most compelling reason I do it — is actually to be more present in the now!
You don't have to wait until you trip is over to capture your thoughts, observation, lists and experiences. You can do so at the end of the day, in those in-between times while you're waiting for something or transfering from one place to another -- or any time you have a moment of peace and quiet and you want to catch up with yourself. This template and the simple inquiry "What are you bringing home with you?" can be shared with any travel companions and can make for some great converesations!
How to use this Template:
☝️TIP: Printthis template and take it on your trip or use it retrospectively for a trip you've recently taken. (Alternately, download or screenshot it)
☝️ TIP: Your journey home is a great time to use the template, while the trip is still very much alive for you. Reflecting at this time also makes for a lovely transition between the "other world" of your trip and your regular, everyday life.
☝️TIP: If there's not enough room for you to write, just flip it over and keep writing on the back (or print yourself out a second one— no extra baggage fee here!)
1) Crystalize the Experience
Fill your "bag" with highlights from your trip! experiences, memories, connections, goodies you bought, gifted, or ate!
Optional: Use an icon from the KEY to label each highlight (or make up your own labels)
2) Crystalize the Wisdom: make a list -- YES/NO for next time
YES! = the things you would definitely do/bring again. This can be anything that you want to remember next time you take a trip (or take this trip if it’s one you repeat.) These can be big or small, strategic or logistical, timing or packing notes-- whether that’s just the right weight of jacket to bring, or gift ideas to for your mother-in-law next time you're in the neighborhood.
NO = what's not worth repeating: whether too much of this, or too little of that, remind yourself what doesn't make your trip better.
3) Bonus: Bring it home to your everyday!
What was so impactful that you want to bring it all the way "home" into your everyday life? A practice, a way of being, a great pair of new shoes?
Adventure Club: Inspired by this Travel Reflection Visual Template, make similar reflections for an annual holiday. It happens every year (and can usually use some improvement 😂) Give your future self a leg up and leave them an insightful note to make it better!