Earlier this year, I went to Hawaii for my honeymoon (which was the reason for essentials week). 

When my partner and I returned, we bought a couple of notebooks from Moleskine and decided to recount our trip through that. For me, it meant writing a page full of words documenting moments from the trip. Sometimes, it involved people we saw or met, other times it was about a location or an experience. My initial goal was to do this once a day until I filled up the notebook.

The process of writing a page about it brings me back to the trip. I start realizing how much stuff my brain remembers unconsciously, or misses that I can do more research about. For example, there was a street we must’ve crossed at least a dozen times—and after writing the entry I realized that I didn’t know the name of it. Reading the name then took me down a rabbit hole of Hawaiian monarch history.

Another entry includes us walking near the Hawaiian Zoo, when we came across a grassroots art market. We both stopped and appreciated the art. It was on my mind, and after I wrote about it, I found out that this was an organized event called Art on the Zoo Fence. 

When I told my friend Hamza about it, he mentioned the term psychedelic integration. After a person goes through a psychedelic experience, they do exercises to work through it and bring the benefits back to their day-to-day life. I thought it was extremely relevant, and I highly recommend integrating your travel back to your day-to-day life. 

You don’t have to write about the trip while it’s fresh—although that’s helpful. Refer to photos and calendars when you can, as well as tickets and emails. A lot of times, this integration helps you notice, appreciate, and better communicate the subtle life changes that take place.