Quotes from Lavinia Spalding

Don't ever live vicariously. This is your life. Live.

I've nursed a lifelong love affair with movement, straying ever farther from those I love most. But somewhere along the way, it dawned on me that I was always traveling with family - because the act of travel, to the extent that it separates us from our relatives, also extends, manifests, multiplies, and completes family.

Making the journal equal to the journey is simply a matter of shifting your intention: you're no longer traveling and keeping a log on the side, but embarking with a dual purpose.

It's the same with writer's block—a surefire way to break the spell is to begin writing furiously, about anything.

Turning something into a ritual eliminates the question, Why am I doing this?

For my money, this is the highest purpose of journaling. A travelogue enables you to look inward while studying the unfamiliar scenes around you,

A journal is personal travel insurance, protecting your memories from strolling off un-chaperoned, vanishing without a goodbye or backwards glance. This is the driving force behind most people's road journals, and although basic, its importance cannot be overstated. The human memory is feeble and needs all the help it can get.

The thing is, even if you start out with a firm resolve and a clear intention, your journal will die a slow death if you write in it only when the spirit moves you.

Sometimes the strongest bonds are easy to overlook in the darkness. And sometimes, that's where you find them.

journal; it's a deeply intimate affair and by far the most private of all writing projects, and no one can or should tell you exactly how to approach it. That would be like advising you on how to bathe or pray—it's really your own deal. I do, however, know what works for me and for lots of other writers, and I have ideas to share.

Procrastination hurts almost any project, but it's murder on a travel journal. First

As Barbara Kingsolver said, "Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, writers will go to stupefying lengths to get the infernal roar of words out of their skulls and onto paper.

In fact, there's nothing like travel to swing wide all the artistic channels,