A little over a year ago in May, I met a sweet family at the Brookside Art Annual in Kansas City. 💗

A mom and dad, and their two boys.

They left my booth with a journal they carefully selected together.

Fast forward to this past Spring, and there we all were, talking in my booth again!

And they had brought that journal back with them...FILLED with family memories.

As they turned the pages to show me, I found myself smiling from ear to ear 😄

Every member of the family had contributed. There were stories, sketches, watercolor paintings, Zentangles, tickets, maps, camping memories, city adventures, and little everyday moments that might have otherwise slipped away with time.

It wasn't just a journal anymore.

🤗 It had become their family's story for a year.

And as we continued to chat, they did something completely unexpected...! They invited me to stay at their little cottage just outside Kansas City whenever I happened to be passing through.

And because life occasionally writes better stories than we do, I found myself driving through the area in late June, after the Des Moines Arts Festival.

🥰 We spent the evening together, grilled dinner, caught up on life...and I asked if I could film a turn-through of their family journal.

Thankfully, they said yes! 🎉🎉🎉

With their blessing, I'm delighted to share it with you today. They hope (as do I) that this inspires you and your family to do the same thing with your journal(s), as they confess it's been such a rewarding activity, many times over.

Enjoy!

Get my FREE PDF of my list of travel art supplies 👉 https://artjournal.kit.com/artsupplies

I have an awesome Travel Journal Turn-Through video that features pages created by Angela, who used the page-by-page playbook from my mini-course "Passport to Pages" while traveling with her sister, JoAnn!

Together, they cruised around the Mexican Riviera—stopping in places like Cabo San Lucas and Mazatlán, hopping on a glass-bottom boat to spot fish, and even went swimming with a dolphin! Those memories could have stayed behind on a camera roll—but instead, Angela gave them a forever-home on the page! 💯

Her journal is filled with watercolors, writing, photos, brochures, room keys, plane tickets… all layered together into something deeply personal. She told me it’s become her favorite souvenir from the entire trip—and that might be my favorite part of the story.

If you’ve ever wondered what Passport to Pages looks like in real life, these pages are a wonderful example of how structure can support creativity without boxing it in.

If YOU want to totally nail YOUR next travel journal, you should totally take my mini-course, Passport to Pages!

It's a page-by-page playbook for your adventures, near or far...and I explain everything in 16 different 12-minute videos that you can binge in one sitting (2.5 hours) or savor over the course of a couple weeks...one module a day!
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❤️ For all skill levels
→No more staring at a blank page.
→No more wondering what to include.
→No pressure around artistic ability!

It's only $97 and you can get it RIGHT NOW here: https://passporttopages.com/register

Or, go it alone--but not without the FREE PDF of my list of travel art supplies https://artjournal.kit.com/artsupplies

Shane and I embarked on a two-week cruise from Buenos Aires, Argentina all the way to Paradise Bay, Antarctica—and back again. Truly spectacular doesn’t even begin to cover it. Every single day felt like a gift, and I’m so grateful I captured this once-in-a-lifetime experience in my travel journal.

The pages at the beginning were created while I was still on the journey, but I didn’t pressure myself to finish the entire journal before returning home. And honestly? That was a gift in itself.

There’s something incredibly special about completing pages after a trip. You get to relive the experience, revisit those glorious moments, and ease back into them with a calm, reflective mind. That peaceful, “zen” feeling you get while traveling doesn’t just live in your memories—it seeps into your journal pages, your mood, and your mindset as you continue the story at home.

But there is one thing I always recommend doing while you’re still traveling 👇

Reserve a few pages toward the back of your journal for vignettes and autographs—little notes from the people you meet along the way. On this trip alone, I met folks from all walks of life, and now they live forever in these pages:

🧔 Neil, from the northern tip of England, and his wife Mary, who shared stories of sheep farming that I adored
👩 Dee, from Australia, with her delightful tales of living in Thailand
👩 Cecilia, from Argentina, who took time to explain the deep significance of the Falkland Islands wars (Las Malvinas siempre!)
🧔 Wei, originally from China and now living in San Francisco—our early-morning coffee chats on Deck 12, sharing the view, are memories I’ll always treasure

So many beautiful souls… and now I carry a piece of them with me in this journal. These pages are truly some of my favorites.

Enjoy the turn-through—I hope it inspires you to capture not just the places you visit, but the people and moments that make the journey unforgettable.

I traveled through Spain for six days, Andorra for three, and France for a week—an adventure filled with movement, memory, and moments I’m still unfolding on the page.

This journal captures the Spain portion of the trip, and while it isn’t finished yet, it already holds so much of the experience. I’m especially looking forward to painting what’s still to come: the Pyrenees Mountains, cows dotting the hillside, and star-filled nights in Andorra.

France brought its own kind of magic—many unforgettable experiences, including time spent with a long-time friend (who may be partly responsible for distracting me from keeping up with my journaling while visiting 😉).

Once this journal is complete, I’ll be sharing a full flip-through of the entire journey. Until then, I hope this glimpse into the Spain pages inspires you to capture your travels—unfinished pages and all.

If you'd like a FREE PDF of my list of travel art supplies, click below! 👇 https://artjournal.kit.com/artsupplies

I traveled solo to Iceland for three nights, then continued on to Amsterdam for eleven—two weeks of quiet mornings, long walks, unexpected moments, and pages slowly filling with memory.

This journal became my constant companion along the way. I averaged about four pages a day, capturing fleeting impressions, sketches, bits of color, and the small details that tend to fade if they aren’t given a home. By the time I returned, every page was full—each one holding a piece of the journey.

In this video, I’m sharing a full flip-through of that travel journal. It’s a reminder of why I journal when I travel—not to document everything, but to preserve the feeling of being there. These pages are a treasure to me, just like all my journals collected from travels around the world.

If you’ve ever wondered how a travel journal fills up day by day, or what it looks like when memory meets the page, I hope this inspires you to start (or continue) your own!

If you'd like a FREE PDF of my list of travel art supplies, click the link below: 
https://artjournal.kit.com/artsupplies

This journal holds the pages I painted during a 16-day journey through Vietnam—traveling from Hanoi in the north all the way down to Ho Chi Minh City in the south. I began the trip with an 80-page journal in hand, perhaps a little over-ambitious in thinking I might fill it entirely while on the road—but that, too, became part of the story.

I traveled with a small group of friends, beautifully guided by Beverly Hayden of Open Door Travel, whose thoughtful leadership made the experience feel both expansive and deeply personal. Along the way, I painted what I could, knowing I would leave pages unfinished for when I returned home—and doing so with intention.

Now that I've been back, those blank pages have become an invitation. I'm finishish them slowly, one at a time, usually with a cup of morning coffee nearby, letting the memories resurface and settle in their own time. It'll be done soon!

Of all the places we visited, Hội An stole my heart. I spent just three days there—celebrating my birthday—and wished I could have lingered longer. Still, those days left a deep imprint, one that continues to unfold across these pages.