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Best App for journaling and photos during trip

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We have been to Europe three times in the past 20 years and keeping track of what we have done with a journal and corresponding photos has gotten easier yet harder in some sense.

When we started traveling 30 years ago it was a physical photo book with printed images and a seperate journal in a binder. Now everything seems to be on an app.

While I love my iPhone it is to small for my fat fingers to effectively work at a journal.

I went through a few posts on this website about what the best application for both journalling and keeping photos. There were a few suggestions but the one most mentioned was very similar to Find Penquins which we have been using for the past 3 years with trips to the Greek Islands and our families' home country of Portugal. We found the one most mentioned in the posts on this forum was Polar Steps which was very similar to Find Penguins but did not have a desktop version so it failed by fat finger test.

So, is there another photo journal application that is both desktop and smartphone capable that has a better book publishing component. Find Penguins uses an AI program to arrange the photographs around the written journal which can be frustrating as to the way the layout arranges the photos. So we are looking for a program very similar to Find Penguins but has the capability to edit the photo book outside of an AI arrangement.
Thanks for your help from a first time poster.

Posted by
7683 posts

Well, I use WordPress for journaling and storing photos I take on a trip. There is a free version and a paid version. I opted for the free for a pretty long time, but once I retired and traveled more, I started running out of photo storage so went with the paid. I like it. There are others out there, of course.

I also just started using Polarsteps (which does have a desktop version—not sure why you said it does not).

But I'm not sure if you are looking to do something that goes online for others to see, or just something personal. If it's just for you, here is a thread that might help: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/how-do-you-hang-on-to-your-memories

But one thing I can think of is using something like Google Docs. You can save your photos to Google Photos and then just create a journal in Google Docs, inserting photos to it as you like. And Google Docs will allow you to keep one long continuous page, which is very handy for photos so you don't have to worry about fitting them into an 8.5x11 format. You can access it on the desktop but also on your phone. You could organize it as well by creating different files for each day or each destination; however you like.

Depending on what kind of laptop you have, there are other journal apps as well. For example, Macs has the app "Day One" and I think that Microsoft has "Microsoft Journal".

Posted by
153 posts

When you say "journal" do you mean actually typing out musings and tidbits from that travel day or, a brief caption-type entry as you would create in a physical photo album?
I used to make elaborate scrapbooks and loved the process, post- trip but it's been years since the last one. I am an Android user but even my Apple- loving daughter-in-law is now a fan of Google Albums, too.
You can create one for each day of your trip and just enter a brief caption under the pic to jog your memory once you are at a desktop keyboard or larger laptop where you can edit, etc
Unless you travel with a laptop with a keyboard easier for you than the phone.
I like choosing an iconic photo for the album "cover". Sometimes I create a Google Doc (you can work on it offline) and summarize the trip, reflections, etc on the plane home- assuming you have a laptop with you.
You can also share also with family and friends. If you order the photos so the newest load first they can even follow along so it's like a journal in real time.
Hope this is helpful! Maybe try it out at home as you go about your day to see if it would work for you? Happy travels!

Posted by
32331 posts

I can certainly relate to the "fat finger" issue as I also won't use a phone for that type of application, although you could deal with the problem to some extent by using an external keyboard. However that's also not ideal due to the small display. I've always travelled with a small Netbook-style laptop and although it's not the fastest machine on the market, it's been adequate. Depending on your budget you could also look at an iPad or other tablet with an external keyboard.

There are lots of travel blog app's available and this list may provide some ideas - https://theworkingtraveller.com/travel-journal-apps/ . WordPress seems to be very popular but I haven't had occasion to use it.

Posted by
2 posts

Thats to all who shared their thoughts. About PolarSteps, I could not find a way to use it on my laptop and its size was a problem on my iPad so not an improvement to Find Penguins.

I will take a look at the suggestions to see if they fit my needs.

My main problem with the Find Penguins is again the AI driven photo layout of the printed books. We love to have a table book at the end of our trips for our friends to browse through in our living room. Most of the book making programs allow for customization but don't have the travel tracking and journaling capability.

Happy travels!
Jeff

Posted by
2624 posts

I also use WordPress for journaling/travel blog. I solved my fat finger problem by using an external bluetooth keyboard paired to my Android phone. Makes it so much easier. Sorry I don't have any suggestions for the publishing side of things, I am old school and print out photos for albums. I've seen reference to Journi app that might be what you're looking for, but no experience with it.

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