Backpacking is a great way to get away from the crowd and enjoy the great outdoors. However after coming back from a greatly satisfying backpacking experiences, one might forge the details, with the passage of time. In order o preserve those memories keeping a backpacking journal for your adventures is essential.

Backpacking Journals

If today, you try to remember your first backpacking experience, you will only be able to remember the bits and pieces about the geography, people you went with, particular routes and great views. Your memory would not serve to remind you about your feelings, as well as enable you to savor the joy the backpacking. That is why you need to jot down your experience in a backpacking journal

There are famous instances of people keeping journals throughout time. Of course, Anne Frank’s Diary is the best example. In her diary, Anne kept a running commentary of the two years her family spent hiding from the Nazis. While your backpacking journal might not prove to be so popular, keeping a journal will let you remember all you saw, even after decades have passed by.

A good backpacking journal should confirm to a certain criteria. First, it should be compact so you don’t have to make space for it in your backpack. Second, it should have a case to protect it from rain, spills and so on. Third, the journal should contain blank areas to write your notes. Fourth, the journal should contain cue spaces to remind you to keep notes on specific things. Cues should include:

1. Who you went backpacking with,
2. Where you backpacked,
3. Who you met,
4. The weather conditions,
5. Routes you tried and how far you made it, and
6. Memorable experiences

1. Contact information for other backpackers and people you met,
2. Enough detail to provide you or a friend with a guide if you backpack the same location.
3. Memories, and
4. Something to pass on to your friends, children and grandchildren.