Expanish TEFL Blog
Keep a Travel Journal During Your Journey in Argentina
One of the best ways to document your time abroad is using a travel journal.
Travel Journal, also called road journal or travelogue, is a record made by a voyager. Generally in diary form, a travel journal contains descriptions of the traveler’s experiences, is normally written during the course of the journey, and may or may not be intended for publishing. ~ wikipedia
If you are teaching English in Buenos Aires, a travel journal will help you keep track of all of your experiences, jobs, students, and anything else that you encounter along the way. A journal lets you write down those unforgettable experiences that, guess what, one day eventually disappear unless correctly noted down.
How do you start a travel journal? And what do you put in your travel journal?
The Travel Journal Guide: How to remember your TEFL in Buenos Aires experience.
1. Start your journal with travel forecast; what do you think will happen to you? What do you expect Buenos Aires to be like? What do you want to see? What are you afraid of? This is a great way to reflect later when you actually have real life experience.
2. Learn what makes you a foreigner. Write about how you are seen as a foreigner? What makes you different than the locals?
3. Write about what makes you proud about your experiences. Sometimes, even going to a supermarket in a foreign country can be challenging, so write about your accomplishments during your time abroad.
4. Think about all the sounds and smells that are different, where are they from.
5. Think about what you were afraid of before you trip abroad. Now think about what could scare you now. Do you still have the same fears?
6. If you here interesting expressions or quotes, write them down. These will always bring you right back to the situation you were in when you heard them.
7. Try to write daily about things you have seen or learned, but only positive things. We often find it easy to remember a dirty bathroom or crazy taxi ride, forgot about those, think about all the great things that happen daily.
8. Keep the names and history of the people you meet while traveling. Some of the most influential and memorable people you will meet in your life will be one the road; sometimes you will only spend hours with that person but you will no doubt remember them for the rest of your life.
9. Write about your teaching experience; teaching English in Buenos Aires can be one of the most exciting and challenging aspects of your abroad experience and its important that you remember all of your experiences.
10. Document your students, your employers, your day to day work, daily routine. Take a good look at the life you have created abroad, how different or similar it is to the one at home, and how far you have come in the world or traveling.
