I catch the Traveler’s Notebook bug and make plans to dive in — with a homemade notebook and fillers.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a YouTube video about something called the Midori Traveler’s Notebook. Originally made in Japan, it consists of a leather folder with elastic straps on the folded edge that you can stick accessories into. As you can imagine, there are lots of accessories, including all kinds of little notebooks — either blank or printed with lines, dots, grids, calendar days, etc. — folders, zippered pouches, credit/business card holders, etc., etc.

Here’s one of the marketing photos from the Traveler’s Company website.

If you want to fall down into a rat hole of information, just go to YouTube and search for Traveler’s Notebook. You’ll see hundreds of videos from people reviewing them, using them, blinging them out, and making them. The one I think is best if you know nothing about them and want to learn is this one on the SuffandThings channel. (Don’t let the intro music turn you off; it eventually goes away.)

I should add here that Traveler’s Notebooks, which are now sold by the Traveler’s Company (with accessories sold in many places on the Internet), have a bit of a cult-like following. So if you do any Internet or YouTube searching, you’ll find a lot of sometimes crazy content about it. The guy in that video refers to this and he’s dead-on right.

My Thoughts — Before Trying it

What I liked about the Traveler’s Notebook is the ability to have multiple notebooks in one binder. These are notebooks that I choose — not ones chosen by someone who thinks they know how everyone will use it. Total customization.

So, for example, I can have a dot printed notebook — is that the same thing as a bullet journal or something different? — for notes and drawings, a lined notebook for a commonplace book, and my daily planner pages. I grab the book on my way out and I’ve got it all with me. Or I lay it out on my desk or countertop as I work or do chores and can consult it or make notes throughout the day. Sounds like a great analog solution to a problem I was tackling with a handful of apps.

There were three things holding me back from embracing the Traveler’s Notebook craze:

• The notebooks are not cheap. The regular sized leather folder with elastic straps is $55. It comes with just one insert. Inserts run from $5.50 to $13 each, with other accessories costing even more. I was looking at nearly $100 to get started, and that would not include my custom daily planner pages.
• I wasn’t sure if I’d stick with using the notebooks. If you’re like me, you’ve started using multiple journaling or note-taking or organizational tools throughout the year, only to abandon them. It’s one thing to abandon a daily planner you bought at Walmart for $5 on January 15, but another to abandon a system that cost $100 to set up.

• 
  One of the great thing about knowing how to bind books is to be able to create custom books to meet your needs.

  I wasn’t sure I needed this solution. After all, I use Scrivener for commonplace book style note-taking, I have a hard-bound daily journal I’ve been writing in regularly since January 1, 2024, I use Apple’s Calendar app and the 2Do app, synchronized on all of my devices, to keep track of appointments and things I need to get done, and, on a daily (micro) level, I have my daily planner pages, which I’d just bound into month-at-a time books. Was I trying to solve a problem that I didn’t have?

I went through this thought exercise a few weeks ago. And then I got busy with other things and forgot about it.

New Skills Lead to Rethinking

Recently, I’ve been taking baby steps on my bookbinding skills. I’ve got the “pamphlet” style book nailed and have made numerous little books over the past few weeks. I really enjoy the sewing part of each project. It’s so relaxing and meditative.

But now I’m thinking of hardbound books with multiple signatures and leather trim or all leather bindings. In preparation to tackle future projects, I bought some scrap leather pieces, some of which are quite large. Large enough, perhaps, to make a Traveler’s Notebook of my own. Instead of costing me $55, I could probably whip one up for about $10. And I already had the bookbinding skills to make the inserts, including ones customized for all of my needs. They’d cost me about $1 to $2 each.

Of course, if I’m making everything myself, I don’t need to make it the same size as the Traveler’s “regular” sized notebook. I could make it any size I wanted to. But then I wouldn’t be able to buy any of the special accessories that might interest me, like the zipper pouch or card file. It made more sense to just make it exactly the same as the Traveler’s Notebook people buy.

Fortunately, there are many, many, many videos on YouTube that explain how to make them. Personally, I can’t watch videos by (mostly) women with high-pitched or uptalking voices. If I start a narrated video and the person doing the video has a voice I can’t stand, wastes too much time blabbering about things that don’t matter, is making something downright juvenile or ugly, or is taking shortcuts to save money on materials or tools to create a low-quality product, I turn it off. There’s a lot of content on YouTube. Watching crap wastes time.

The one I watched and liked best was on Ray Blake’s channel: “Making Your own Midori-style Leather Traveler’s Notebook.” Clear, easy-to-follow instructions without a lot — or any, actually — time-wasting bullshit. This video is 11 years old and although he hasn’t done any videos about these notebooks within the past 2+ years, he still provides PDF files on his blog for printing out calendar and planner books. His Daily Dashboard is remarkably similar to my own Daily Planner pages.

And that’s what sold me on making my own Traveler’s Notebook.

The Plan

And that’s where I stand today, as I type this. Once I get my work and chores done and have some time to play, I’ll go down into my studio, pull out those leather scraps, fire up Ray’s how-to video on my iPad, and follow the instructions (with some modifications I saw elsewhere) to make my own leather folder in the Traveler’s Notebook style. I’ve already printed out the pages I need to make a dot journal, a lined journal, and a two-month Daily Planner book (thanks, Ray!).

Tomorrow (or maybe Saturday), I’ll report back with photos of what I’ve managed to do. Wish me luck!

Note: Want more of this story? Part 2 is online now right here.