Look &/or listen as my guest and fellow travel hugger shares all the stories contained within the pages of what was a simple blank journal.

As I walked over to the location of my Things That Matter workshop, offered during an adult summer camp called Camp Indie, I saw a young woman sitting alone looking through a journal. I wasn’t sure if she was joining us in 15 minutes or if she was taking time to be alone with her thoughts. But when I sat down near by I inquired. She WAS there for my workshop AND the journal she was looking through WAS the Thing that matters to her.

I don’t know about you but I have bought blank journals & received them as gifts too. I absolutely LOVE the idea of keeping a travel journal, BUT I get stuck on what to write about & how to organize it. I’ve got way too many half used, who am I kidding, less than a quarter used journals laying around.

Honestly I didn’t know how to write a story that I’d want to read years from now. Notes of dates, times & places get boring…. but through experimentation, a love of writing & organizing Hannah came up with a most beautiful way of documenting her journey into if not yet full-time… its frequent travel.

When Hannah was getting ready to go abroad for a semester to Italy, her brother gifted her with a this journal. Being alone in a foreign country without Italian language fluency left Hannah with a lot of time on her own…. so she started keeping this journal.

Look &/or listen as Hannah takes us along on her semester abroad, the side trips SO easy & cheap to take when you’re already in Europe & to life after college graduation as she made certain to continue to travel & keep writing her stories within this journal.

She documented her travels with writings, quotes, souvenirs & drawings. A journal she enjoys reading & looking through all the time. This journal & her dogs are the things she would grab to escape a house fire… I imagine that now includes her husband who she married after this recording!

One of my favorite pages was her “What I’ve learned from living in Italy” section, where she created columns with “SKILLS, What I love & What I hate” at the top…. no cheddar cheese was what she hated the most.

From Hannah’s personal experience with this journal she got inspired to think of ways to help other travelers keep a more compelling, beautiful & organized travel journal. One that’s as fun to create as it is to revisit after the trip. She brought a prototype of this journal to my workshop in June 2023.

With the enthusiasm, creativity, feedback & support she got during my Things That Matter workshop, she’s pursuing the creation of her travel journal!!!! I can’t wait to see the finished product! Go Hannah!!!

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I do & learn more about this delightful human here

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Let’s build more connections, community & legacy by sharing & listening to the stories of the Things that matter. Things don’t matter, but the stories that get attached to them often do. ______________________________________________________________________________

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