{"id":823,"date":"2015-06-15T12:18:23","date_gmt":"2015-06-15T17:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/?p=823"},"modified":"2015-06-15T12:19:38","modified_gmt":"2015-06-15T17:19:38","slug":"travel-logs-the-handy-reference-you-may-be-overlooking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/travel-logs-the-handy-reference-you-may-be-overlooking\/","title":{"rendered":"Travel Logs: The Handy Reference You May Be Overlooking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/palmtree.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1255\" src=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/palmtree.jpg\" alt=\"palmtree\" width=\"800\" height=\"560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/palmtree.jpg 800w, https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/palmtree-300x210.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When I go on vacation, I have a rule of spending as little time on the computer as possible. This was especially true when I had a regular full-time job, but I don&#8217;t see things changing as a freelancer.\u00a0 I paid good money to put myself in a different place for a while, to experience that place &#8211; so I might as well <em>experience it<\/em>. There will be ample email- and social media-fooling-around time when I get home.<\/p>\n<p>I make two tiny exceptions. One: communication from my pet-sitters (I have two cats, and I&#8217;m <em>never<\/em> doing OK unless I know they&#8217;re doing OK). Two: at the end of each day, I spend 5-10 minutes chronicling the day&#8217;s events: where we went, what was good and bad, how it all looked and felt, what I learned about this new place and the people there.<\/p>\n<p>I find this a really valuable practice for several reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In case I decide to base a story, scene, or character off this information later. I can draw upon and leverage my authentic experiences. Living it yourself is seriously the best method of <a href=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/how-writers-do-research-right\/\" target=\"_blank\">research<\/a> possible!<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s good writing practice when I&#8217;m away from my usual projects. I think it&#8217;s helpful to step away and write things that aren&#8217;t your main project from time to time. It helps you blow off steam, and lets your brain go in directions it won&#8217;t normally because it&#8217;s stuck in some particular genre, with a particular set of characters and circumstances.<\/li>\n<li>To encourage myself to do and see more. I&#8217;m an introvert who needs regular kicks to the butt to get out and do things. I want to have lots to write down later!<\/li>\n<li>If I decide to revisit this place someday, it&#8217;s a reference guide of lessons learned. Restaurants to revisit, for instance &#8211; or the valuable knowledge that you need <em>at least<\/em> 2 hours to get through US customs!<\/li>\n<li>To relive an awesome trip as often as I like. The trips I&#8217;ve logged this way, I remember much better than the ones I didn&#8217;t. This makes it easy to recall sights\/sounds\/smells\/quotes\/etc. that might&#8217;ve slipped through the cracks otherwise. A few words in, and suddenly I&#8217;m re-enjoying that mocha in the museum cafe.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My journaling is really nothing special &#8211; just a rich text file &#8211; but I put as much of my own personality and humor into the descriptions as I can, and soon the thing has a life of its own. It&#8217;s not something I intend to share, but it easily <em>could<\/em> be a blog post or essay if I spruced it up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>If you haven&#8217;t logged your own travel this way, give it a shot and see what happens!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!-- Place this tag in your head or just before your close body tag. --><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/apis.google.com\/js\/plusone.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><!-- Place this tag where you want the widget to render. --><\/p>\n<div class=\"g-post\" data-href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/+EllisMorning\/posts\/USbPtX5zH1B\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I go on vacation, I have a rule of spending as little time on the computer as possible. This was especially true when I had a regular full-time job, but I don&#8217;t see things changing as a freelancer.\u00a0 I paid good money to put myself in a different place for a while, to experience that place &#8211; so I might as well experience it. There will be ample email- and social media-fooling-around time when I get home. I make&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/travel-logs-the-handy-reference-you-may-be-overlooking\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advice","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1259,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions\/1259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}