Notebooks for Travel
It's that time of year again. The CEO is undertaking residential training of the Head of Marketing and Mrs Nero's Notes and I are heading off for some sunshine.
Being away from my extensive stocks of notebooks requires serious thought and planning.
What notebooks to take on a trip?
To be fair, we are not ascending the North face of the Eiger, nor swimming up the Amazon. A comfortable airliner will take us to to a Mediterranean island, where we'll collect a car and drive to a lovely villa. So, I don't think I specifically need a rough, tough outdoorsman type of notebook for this trip. Nor, do I need to get all minimal about everything.
After much agonising, I have got myself down to five books.
1. My Standard Memorandum by Word. Notebooks. I haven't missed a day in 2018 yet. Before bed, I write a brief memory from the day.
2. My Lock & Key by Baron Fig. This is my 'Desk Driver' where I use an adaptation of the bullet journal system.
3. My Great Barrier Reef Journal by Dingbats. This book is for a specific project that we are working on, and is where I centralise everything around that project.
4. Fa Vo. I am testing this brand before stocking it. This is the ruled version, and will serve as a content book. This is where blog posts, like this one, will be drafted. Notes for 1857, the podcast that I do with TJ Cosgrove will also start in here.
5. Walden. The Thoreau 200th Anniversary Birthday Edition by Write Notepads & Co. This is my pocket notebook. I'll jot in it, doodle in it, put lists in it, maybe even staple stuff in it. This will be my record of the trip.
Later in the year, I'll be on my camino trip, which is outdoors and stripped down, and will almost certainly feature a Fisher Space Pen. This trip however, I'll take a bulging pencil case with a variety of pens and pencils. I'll be writing for the sheer pleasure of it, at times.
I'll take a variety of pencils from Tombow, Milan, Golden Bear, Graf von Faber Castell, Koh-I-Noor and Blackwing. I'll have a couple of Lilliputs by Kaweco, TWSBI mini, a squire by Baron Fig, a Retro 51 and who knows, one or two more.
What about you guys? What notebook do you take away on holiday, or vacation? What criteria do you use to choose?