Happy New Year Resolution - A Blank Page Awaits

Out of England

Are you determined to travel more this year? Apply pressure on yourself by obtaining a travel journal and allow those blank pages to chastise you out of your geographical inertia. Choose your destinations carefully though. You shouldn't suffer hardships when you travel — avoid the recommendations of travel advisers who try and convince you that a vibrant and up-and-coming travel spot isn't actually a place of extreme wretchedness and squalor peopled by locals hostile to your presence. You don't get many days off, so why make it hard on yourself.

Remember that the term 'holiday-maker' shouldn't be a pejorative — making a holiday is a delightful thing to be able to make.

With the Panama Travel Journal from Smythson (1887) of Bond Street, London, you will feel obligated to add the names, addresses, itineraries and shopping lists of the brightest spots with well-their established charm and attractiveness. I'm sure you'll have a few anecdotes to note down too, knowing you. Don't forget to include the tweaks you would make on your return visit; and also leave space for new entries — and make sure to pack the journal in your Globe-Trotter each time you depart.

The Panama Travel Journal is made in England, and is bound in cross-grain lambskin. Inside, you can record your travel notes on the gilt-edged featherweight pages headed with lines for date and location (see top photo).

Don't Let the Past Be Everything You Failed to Do

If you're an incorrigible traveller, and fancy yourself as a latter-day Sir Richard Burton, you may feel the need to capture your thoughts whilst travelling each day. Don't feel tempted to share them on social media — a diary is intended as a private way to feed your egotism. No, record those thoughts in something like Smythson's Cosmic Travel Diary.

If each day is an anniversary of your life, it's up to you to fill the diary with interesting events. No pressure, but don't let the past be everything you failed to do.

The travel diary is bound in calf leather with a perforated map design, which makes it lighter. Inside, you have a page a day layout to capture your musings on the life essential.