Travel inspiration: How to capture it down
In this article
Inspiration for travel
We usually see and hear things that are going to trigger a desire to visit certain places.
However, when the time comes to start planning a trip, all of this inspiration seems to have evaporated.
Therefore, having a habit of writing down travel ideas helps formulating plans for an upcoming trip.
In addition, it will also provide a great go-to when it’s time for your trip.
Categorising your inspiration
How you approach this task can depend on many factors.
Grouping by city or country
Depending on your interests and style of travel, consider saving the information that you collect by city or country.
At very least, group by country or region (e.g. Europe) as it will be a better starting place for your detailed planning.
Grouping by theme
Grouping together images, articles, reviews, etc. by theme may be helpful as you see ideas.
However, this approach makes it harder to move into planning an actual trip.
For example, information on “cats” might be an endless source of fascination.
However, unless all of the cats that you want to see are in the same location, it can be harder to determine your destination with this information alone.
At the end of the day, effective travel photography planning starts with a destination more so than a theme.
Digitally capturing your inspiration
Here are some suggested tools for easy collation of your travel inspirations.
Evernote or Microsoft OneNote
In essence, these tools are similar to a scrapbook, with all the benefits of being digital.
Both EverNote and Microsoft OneNote perform largely the same functions, and have free plus paid subscription options.
They capture emails, links to articles, photos, thoughts, reviews by friends and family, lists, etc.
You are able to add narration on any of the information you collated.
Lastly, these these tools work offline.
Pinterest is an online portal used for creating impressions and mood boards.
This helps collate inspiration from different places, including images, articles, etc.
This is a simple solution that doesn’t require much investment of time to learn a new tool.
You create email folders for filing ideas and recommendations.
Images and links can be emailed to yourself to file away.
Existing productivity tools
You no doubt already use word processors (e.g. Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, Google Docs) and spreadsheets to capture various pieces of information.
Whilst a little clunky, these tools can be repositories of your travel inspiration, and can be sorted and ordered to your needs.
Tangible ways of capturing your inspiration
This goes in a very different direction to the advice to use digital tools.
This is because there is something powerful about using physical ways of capturing your travel photography desires.
Having this information placed somewhere in your house / office that see regularly acts as inspiration of itself.
This will continue to motivate you to get a trip underway or inspire you to plan out the travel year.
Map of the country / map of the world
A map of the world or your travel destination region can feel a little cliche, however it works.
Use pins to colour-code places visited, and places to visit.
This way, you can visually see progress over time and spur you on to do more.
Scrapbook
This can be a throwback to childhood, even if it feels a little old-fashioned to some.
The act of cutting-and-pasting articles from newspapers and magazines and placing them into a scrapbook makes you visualise that trip.
Pinboard
Using a pinboard is similar to using scrapbooks.
The benefit here is that pins are less messy than glue.
That, and you can see what’s on a pinboard more readily than the contents of a scrapbook.
Inspiration to planning
Having a system for capturing down your inspiration, and subsequent research, helps enormously for trip planning.
Following on from what was said above, using tools like Evernote or OneNote allows more dynamic reordering of information as a plan comes together.
This tends to be more efficiently than other means.
Here is some key information to write down when planning locations to visit.
Opening hours
Take note of opening hours as well as opening days of the week.
Museums often are closed on a Monday in many cities.
Places of worship are closed for services on specific days of the week (Sundays for Christian churches).
Parks can have seasonal closures.
For countries in the Middle East, the weekend is Friday and Saturday, with many places closed on a Friday.
Costs
The costs of the trip can start mounting if you’re not careful.
This is especially an issue if there are lots of places that charge entry fees.
Multi-pass options
Most tourist destinations have created multi-pass pricing structures that both help make the total cost of visits cheaper.
In addition, these passes provide a bit of an incentive to visit less-popular locations by virtue that you’ve already “paid” for access with the multi-pass.
Multi-pass type plans can take the form of “Museums”, “Churches”, or general attractions.
Also, multi-day passes can be tied in with public transport passes as well.
Consider your travel plans as an unlimited public transport option can often work out quite cost effective.
Locations / addresses
It’s important to understand where specific places you want to visit are located in relation to each other.
You can gauge this through marking on a map or creating a Google Maps list.
Through this exercise you can determine how you will get around a location.
This could be by foot, public transportation, or other means.
You may need to consider hiring a car / bike to reach places that are outside of a city centre.
Alternatively, look further into public transport arrangements.
Key takeaways
Having a system in place to capture travel inspiration when you see it is important.
It will save you time when it comes time for planning.
Experiment with options, and stick with what consistently works for you.
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