Times Travel Journal: Diary & Info
New Moleskine-style Book Combines Travel Advice with Blank Notebook
The Times Travel Journal by former Times Travel Editor Cath Urquhart is a Moleskine-type book that is part travel advice guide and part blank diary for your trip notes.
After the success of the Times UK Holiday Handbook the former London Times Travel Editor Cath Urquhart has got together with publishers Navigator Guides to produce a unique new book. The Times Travel Journal is the ideal gift for every traveler (including yourself). It combines 96 pages of essential travel information with 144 blank diary pages in one impressive Moleskine-style book. It is travel guide and personal travel diary combined in one.
The black cover is subtly embossed with a map of the world and 'The Times Travel Journal', and the book comes with a ribbon bookmark and the attached elastic holder that's familiar to the many Moleskine fans around the globe. There are also generous and sturdy-looking pockets fitted to the inside front and back covers, plenty big enough to keep your passport, train tickets, passes, business cards, or whatever else you want to keep safely together in one place.
At the back is a map of the world's time zones, and at the front a regular map of the world. My only quibble with the design would be that instead of seeing a map when you open the Journal, it would be nice to have somewhere to write your name and the trip details, or a place to write a dedication if giving the book as a present – which it is ideal for. It's handsome enough for business travelers to use, yet funky and rugged enough for backpackers and gap year students too.
Inside the Journal, the first 96 pages are given over to essential travel advice, written by Cath Urquhart. The author spent ten years (1997-2007) as Travel Editor of the Times in London, and before that paid her dues as a backpacker and gap year traveler herself, working as a teacher at a school in the Himalayas. She reminds readers that even as recently as the 1980s it was so difficult to phone home that she did so only once in twelve months. Today she'd no doubt be writing a daily blog or posting her news on Facebook.
The information that Cath Urquhart incorporates into the Journal includes passport and visa advice, money matters, all-important health information for all around the world, practical stuff like different clothes sizes, a temperature conversion chart, international dialling codes and even how to tie a decent knot.
Finally there are the 144 blank pages to write up the diary of your trip or trips. Cath Urquhart reminds us that despite advances in technology, high-tech isn't always best. Your Journal's battery won't pack up in the middle of nowhere, and the files won't become corrupted (unless you drop it in a river, of course). You can keep it on your bookshelf forever, without worrying whether Microsoft Vista will read the data.
In short, there's a lot to be said for an old-fashioned journal, and the Times Travel Journal is excellent.
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The Times Travel Journal costs £12.95 and can be bought on the Navigator Guides website.
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Review of the Times UK Holiday Handbook.
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