The words hereafter are just opinions that assert lawful truths and should be taken as subjective:
I have decided that documenting travel for oneself (no audience) should first start with a reflection of how well you recall words/conversations and images. Whatever you are weaker at you should focus your attention in documenting. Secondly, depending on how important this trip is, you should likely employ tactics to maximize memory retention, i.e., abstain from drinking and getting solid regular sleep(!!!!). Lastly, make sure never to document visual experiences in words – at least important ones. Every-time you move something from the visual side of the brain to the literate side of the brain, a copy of a memory is formed that experts agree “is shitty”, and other scientists I won’t cite say that every time you recall a memory it gets a little less true. This means also not describing it in word by speaking -never tell anyone and think of it as seldom as possible. That piece is for you. You’ll know it when you see it, put the camera down, lock it away, pull it out only when you really really need it.
How did I end up here?
I have previously thought, “I am traveling, I should record the movements that define this as travel as to never forget this travel” and ended up with a journal that is nothing but “then” statements. I have just taken photos of stuff constantly, but realized that too is a lot of work and someone else on the internet has already taken my exact photo and at a lot better quality (iPhone 6 se, not that great). The mantra of make sure there is a person in your photo is more true than ever.
Additionally, my memories of photos of a place seem to supersede the actual memory of the place, and since my camera sucks, I started not taking photos of the best part of anything. Just photos of things near it to get me to the area of my brain that has that good shit.
On the last trip I discovered that I can remember images very well, but almost forget everything people say after a day or two. I personally found a lot of value in recording conversations that were interesting, some wordy snippet of a person I met, or the memes that come out of the trip. These things evaporated by the next day and were hard to write down later, consequently freeing up the backlog if I blew it. I also found that for me, that was where most of the joy of the trip was locked up and images just came along with those memories for free. So my journals ended up looking like a bunch of tags followed by “quotes” (in quotes!) with other explanatory detail. Not very interesting to share, but great for me to look back on and laugh or huff and puff.
memories locked away:
I have been obsessed with the idea that memories that have been unattended to are the most accurate to fact. There is a radiolab about this you may have heard. When I was 7, my Dad has a stroke that shook up his entire life. 3-4 years of memories from 1993-1997, arguably the most important years of his career life, became locked away in some part of his brain he has little to no leads to. This lead him to sell the business and to lament the missed opportunity of even greater success. That combined with his new lack of ability to have reliable short term memory storage, resulted with an obsession with the past and its mystery.
To cut a long story short, A few years ago he went on this 2 month long road trip to see people he used to know to try and unlock some of these memories. It was a great and weird trip for him, but sadly he has no documentation skill at all and I am unsure of the long lasting benefit to him was. However, when he does remember something, I imagine it is like a well preserved thing under a white cloth in a storage unit, just as true as it could be. For something life changing and amazing, that is what I imagine the ideal is – just something preserved on its own until needed.
