Presents!

So the past few months have been quite festive with Christmas, New Years Eve, summer in general...AND I recently turned 21 (yippee!). To celebrate, I had a party and received some lovely presents from my friends. I thought I'd share a couple of travel-related presents I got, because I think they're so handy! It's easy to find travel items that are practical at the expense of aesthetics, but I think these two definitely strike an excellent balance between the two. 

Left: Travel Diary from Briony; Right: Genuine leather Passport/travel document holder from Maddy (who is currently in Lyon!- lucky goose). 

I think it is so handy how the diary has a little pocket where you can put things like train tickets, museum ticket stubs, postcards, and whatever else you'd like to save as souvenirs. I find these little things make me more nostalgic than say, a snow globe, when I find them a few months after my holiday. The passport holder opens up 3 times; there's room for things like bank cards, foreign currency, boarding passes etc. 

Much of the diary is filled with lined pages with questions, where you can fill in your answers plus write whatever else you like. In addition to this, it has a few pages where you can write about the interesting people you meet along the way- which I think is so cute. I have had so many great conversations with people while waiting for planes and trains, standing in museum lines, in the coat-check lines at bars etc. I wish I had some record of them all! Encounters like these are so transient but a great way to learn more about people. It also has some information that can be really handy when you're stuck without wifi and need to find out about temperature and measurement conversions, and most importantly, clothing and shoe size conversions ;) If you're super forgetful like me, there are checklists of important things that you should take with you, and make sure you still have with you when moving from one place to another. I think this is going to be a lifesaver for whenever I travel again. While photos are a wonderful way of documenting things when travelling, I think it's great to have some written documentation of your experiences and what you learn along the way, because there are so many lessons! 

Cheeky motivational message from my friend on the last page

I know the travel diary is from Typo, but I am not sure where the passport holder is from- I'll post it on here as soon as I find out. 

I am so excited to use these the next time I go on holiday, I think they're so gorgeous and practical at the same time!