How to document your journey, adventure or trekking
Travelling is one of life's most valuable pleasures. Whether it's a getaway, a trek or any adventure, it's essential to document it so that besides being stored in your mind as a great experience, there is physical and digital evidence of your time in that sensational destination. Now, you may be wondering how you can documenting your tripFor what and for whom will I document my journey?
Take a minute to consider your most recent adventure - what sticks in your mind, who did you go with, was there anything spectacular that made an impact on you? Now think about the first time you went hiking... do you remember? Keeping a diary is a nice way to preserve your experiences. (here's how to get started).
The way to do it is personal and it can be a blog, a record of the places we go through, or whatever everyone prefers. Let each person decide their own. One of these people who keeps a log is Juan Andrés Zudaire "Txanan". A mountaineer from Navarre, who tells us how he keeps a "mountaineering activity diary" (Click here).
Write.
Become a writer. Get a notebook, a travel diaryA different one from the one you usually use, just to make notes about your activity. Keep it small, simple, easy to carry and to handle. Write down the names of the places you pass through, the dates, times, your impressions, names of the people you met, their stories, etc.
The ultimate travel notebook is a moleskine, historically used by travellers, adventurers, architects, journalists, etc. There is a whole community around it, get inspired here.
Similarly, make notes of interesting or curious things, impressions of the route, where you spent the night, whether you liked it or not, the food you tasted and its names, perhaps even a local recipe that will be useful when you get home, the means of transport you used, your appreciation of them and tips you can offer to other travellers later on.
These notes will simply allow you to remember the name of that person who shared a table with you at the shelter, a seat on the train ride, the dish you ate that night at dinner or the name of that beach you liked so much.
Talk to the locals.
Although it is sometimes difficult for the traveller, there is no better travel experience than meeting a local who will show you much more of the destination you are visiting. With their permission, of course.
Photograph it and write about it or them in your notebook. It will be a good experience and at the same time you will make new friends in another part of the world, who can help you on another occasion. Learning about their culture and customs will make you part of their history and, in some cases, you will identify with it.
Make a scrapbook.
It is not a album like the one you have at home where family photos are stored, it is a folder or envelope in which you can store all the information you find or are given en route.
These include hut cards, entrance tickets to parks, buses and trains, visitor cards, menus, payment tickets, maps and other printed brochures that refer to a place.
Keep it all in one place, so that when you get home, you will have everything at hand to show the details of your trip. It will even serve as a reference to locate places, phone numbers and send emails if necessary.
Photograph.
No matter where you go or what camera you use, it's in your hands to capture your experience, your moment, and to seize or create photographic opportunities. We're going to introduce you to some concepts, go over some practical tips and, of course, present you with some inspiring images that will make you think about both your role as a "capturer of moments" and your next trip or adventure.
- READ ALSO: Creative photography for travel and outdoors
Take a camera with you. When trying to document places, keep in mind something very important: What caught your attention? It is not only the place, the mountain or the route, but everything around it, the path you took to get there and what surrounds it, from the peak you could see from the pass, the hut on the horizon, the locals who greeted you warmly and with whom you shared a pleasant chat, the fields that surprised you and whose morphology you had not seen before.
The idea is to make accurate shots from your photographic cameraso that you don't miss anything. Be patient enough, take the picture when there are no distracting elements that could damage your image and try with several pictures, so that no details are missed.
Following the patterns of respect, always ask if you can photograph such and such a thing, as sometimes there are places where this is not allowed. Take into account colours, figures and structures that catch your attention. Remember that depending on the place you visit, the context of the photo will be different.
Use social media, blogs and other platforms.
And now we come to social networks and other platforms. Today more than ever we make use of them to tell our daily lives, how we are, what has surprised us, what we have done. We can apply our best storytelling to share our journey or adventure.
- Instagramfor photography lovers, or Tik Tokfor those who like short video and spontaneity.
- Youtube for those who want to prepare a mini-report of more than 5 minutes or a longer format.
- The blogs are back to stay, or rather the content of the creator, who has found in the newsletter a great ally.
If you're more of a hands-on person and find yourself sharing tracks of your routes or reviews of your itineraries, you can share or save your itineraries at Wikiloc. Or they can pass on everything they have learnt in their activity in the infinite number of forums and communities that are available on the internet. Here is a link to ours (click here), more oriented to the great routes in the Pyrenees.
