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| Every photo holds a micro-story |
"I counted 48 countries travelled," Jim puts his pencil aside.
"I counted 50 travelled," I reply.
"Perhaps 50 because I've been to Viet Nam and you haven't, and you've been to Morocco and I haven't.
"Well, then, what can we say...to be honest?"
"To keep learning, understanding, and sharing, let's add a few more countries and a few more micro-stories."
"I like the way you think. I'll stock up on more journals."
We have drawers, shelves, and bookcases where we store finished travel journals. Who will read them, we don't know. Sometimes, we like to refer to them and recall a village or restaurant, or day tour for someone on a travel thread who is seeking information.
I keep the journals and faithfully write at the end of each day regardless of how tired I am. I write to make sure we remember people, experiences, encounters, and discoveries. So, how do I organize a travel journal? I'd like to share my way.
On the inside cover, I write the date of the adventure, the countries involved, departure and return dates, and add one address label in case the journal is lost. The following pages outline the devotions we'll find and read each day. Next, I list the shoes we take because a trip to every country oddly requires a different type of shoe. Finally, I list the backpacks we take, which are always Ospreys. (Except for a recent 2026 Camino in Spain, we took only Fjallrave Skule 28L used for our 10-day walk.) So why is it important to list shoes and backpack sizes? When we plan our next trip, we always refer to our journals and the shoes we took, the weather there, the purpose of the trip, and the usefulness of the shoe type. If the shoes were faithful in all those ways, then we can trust them again. We've never made a mistake.
The following pages of my travel journal hold to a pattern: dates, locations, people, culture, languages, food in detail, complaints (yes) and finally, blessings of that day.
I have written late into the night so I will not forget the unusual encounters we have experienced that day. We meet some of the most interesting people along the way who openly share their culture with us. I think cultures and people are drawn to backpackers. My guess is they see us as truly experiencing their culture as independent travelers. I write what they say, what we try to say in their language, and what we learned about their culture that day.
We have truly seen the purest of people who genuinely want to help the backpacker. One micro-story happened recently in Ferrol, Spain early in the morning as we began our Camino out of town. Pilgrims on the Camino are constantly searching for the Yellow arrows that may be found on sides of buildings, on standing markers, or small signs to direct our path. Sometimes they are evasive. Suddenly, we heard a barking dog behind us and a man's voice loudly calling out. We stopped and turned to see an old gentleman tottering on a cane beside the barking dog. He was pointing. We were walking away from a Yellow arrow we had missed...away in the wrong direction. We were following our last arrow sighting and had failed to see the change in direction. We could not say "Gracias" enough! Both the dog and the gentleman earned a place in my journal that night. They also earned the "blessing of the day!"
We enjoy opening pages of journals from decades ago just to read about who we were. We compare countries and cultures and the changes we notice now. We laugh at ourselves and how we barely managed in some countries. Still, certain people in certain locations vividly remain unique based on how they changed us.
We fully believe every people intersection we have had along our journeys have been orchestrated by God.
We'll keep buying Page-A-Day journals and keep writing!
Thanks for coming along with us today.
Keep Looking Up!
J:m and L:nda, who want to stand firm in the Good News of the gospel so His peace will shine through and be that Light.
