Travel Journal tip 2 from on the road

Travel Journal tip 2 is a quick simple thing that you can do to enhance your travel journal while you are travelling. It will not  take up too much time, does not require a particular skill or needs much in the way of equipment. Ok so what is my travel journal tip 2? One of the first things I do when I land in a new city is to visit the tourist information office. Most places are only too keen to promote  their city and these services have been set up in order to sell you tours of one sort …

What is this Camino thing about?

Some readers have asked: what is this walk we are doing? Although since we both a very bad flu caught on a plane while traveling here this walk might be postponed for a couple of days at least. My daughter describes the Camino de Santiago as epic. In a way it is but I think of it as a long walk that has some amazing moments. The Camino (which means ‘the way’ in Spanish) is an ancient medieval Christian pilgrimage route that will take us 800km/500 miles across northern Spain to a place called Santiago de Compostela – which translates as …

Travel Journal tip 1 from on the road

This is the start of a series of travel journal tips. The idea is that these tips are quick little things you can do while traveling that enhance your travel journal. These tips are all things I do in my own travel journal and the examples I share are real life samples of something done while traveling. Tips that are shared are real rather than polished or perfect. I figure that many people attempt to keep a travel journal and don’t because their expectations are too high. Or they want perfection which is the undoing of many creative projects. Before …

Morning Urban Sketching at the Arboretum

We have started our training for our next travel adventure. Yes we are planning another long walk across Spain but that is not the sort of training I meant. I have increased my urban sketching as I hope to keep more of a travel sketch journal this next trip. I usually manage a few sketches in my travel journal but this time around I am wanting to record the trip with even more sketches. Today we walked from our home to the National Arboretum, a trip of about 11km. The arboretum is set in a hilly part of Canberra and …

How I got over the biggest creative block of my life by Sketching in Kuching and Cambodia

It’s been a while since I have written here and there is a reason for that. You see, I was stalled. In the past I have had phases of being stalled but not like this one. This was a full scale creative block I had, of course, heard of things like creative block or writers block but I had not realised these periods of time could last so long. Bear with me while I give you some background – make a cuppa, I will tell you the story and while also sharing some sketching eye candy with you. (Click on …

Finding threads of a story while traveling

I am not sure what I feel about omens as sometimes they sound like new age clap trap but I did pause to think about the person who carried this shell on a pilgrimage. This shell dated at 1200 AD was found in the old city at Bristol. Now, the interesting thing about this shell is that this type of shell is not found in British waters. The scallop shell is the symbol of St James and worn by pilgrims as a sort of badge while walking the Santiago de Compestela in Spain. In times past it was believed to …