I'm a traveller now
My notebook system wasn't working for me. I made a decision recently to start writing a commonplace book, which reduced the uses I had for my bullet journal. In turn, I opted to try logging my work tasks and events in my bullet journal, mixed with my personal stuff. That hasn't worked for me either.
I want to continue with the three notebooks: journal for personal schedules/tasks/etc., commonplace book for observations and quotes etc., and a notebook for work schedules/tasks. For a little while I've been eyeing traveller's notebooks - those leather shells with elastic loops that can carry multiple notebooks or inserts and what-have-you.
This new attempt of a set-up was enough for me to finally pull the trigger. I did not buy a Traveler's Journal™ but instead went with a Wanderings A5 Travel Refillable Travelers Notebook. There were some good reviews of the product and as far as I can tell the company is Canadian1.
It arrived in very nice packaging, and it was environmentally friendly; the notebook was inside a cardboard box, and some thin cardboard inserts separated the covers from the notebooks (I guess to hold the shape). Very nice presentation. I think the journal was inside a plastic wrap but I'll give that a pass. I kept the box, I really liked it. I may have future use for it.
Right off the bat I made what I would say is a rookie mistake - I removed the inserts that arrived with the notebook without paying attention to how they were arranged with the elastics. It took me several web searches (and in fact, a ChatGPT chat) to finally figure out how to arrange more than two notebooks. I have it now, but for the moment I'm only using two inserts - my A5 leuchtturm and one of the blank inserts that came with the notebook "system".
I wanted to have the commonplace notebook in the elastics somewhere but because of the size it just didn't fit2. For now, it lives in the pocket of my leuchtturm where I can grab it easily3.
Images from user reviews on Amazon.ca; these are not my pictures.
I've had it since Friday and used it for less time than that, so this week is the first real test run. I will leave a proper review for it by the end of the week; I'll probably paste it in this post as an edited update.
So far though, I'm impressed. It fits a leuchtturm easily (the three inserts it came with together were slightly thicker than my journal, in fact), and the elastic system is easy to use (once you figure out that it is, in fact, simple).
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I actually can't tell. I thought I read somewhere on Amazon (where I purchased the notebook) that they were based in Canada, but when I read "Our Story" from their website they only mention "Pacific Northwest", which in my experience is typically used to describe the northwest States like Washington or Oregon, not usually Vancouver.↩
It's one of the test notebooks I made for myself, and I don't even know what paper size it would correspond with. Anyway it's much smaller than A5.↩
I also have another self-made notebook meant for tracking music for mixtapes that fits in there as well.↩