Putting pen to paper on a fresh take on travel memories, Capture Travel Journals is turning adventures into keepsakes – with big ambitions for the journey ahead.
Tell us about your business – sell yourself!
Capture Travel Journals is a collection of seven hardback journals designed for female adventurers of all ages. Each edition covers a different region of the world and combines practical organisational pages with space to record the experiences that make a trip memorable. Journalling can be difficult to start, so prompts throughout encourage travellers to capture not just where they went, but what they learned, noticed and felt. They’re designed to be used across many trips and eventually become a keepsake filled with years of adventures.
What distinguishes your approach from the competition?
When I started looking at travel journals, I found lots of brown leather, aeroplanes and fairly traditional designs. I wanted something bright, fun and attractive enough to display on a bookshelf or coffee table. Organising the collection by continent also means someone who travels widely can easily return to a particular trip years later. Most importantly, the prompts go beyond photographs: What did a place smell like? How did it make you feel? Who did you meet? Those small details are often the memories we lose.
What is the key ethos underpinning what you do?
I want to stop meaningful travel memories disappearing into camera rolls and phone notes. Travel is about far more than the places we photograph - it’s the people we meet, foods we try, stories we hear and things we learn. I still love rereading my own travel notes and rediscovering the name of a tiny village I visited, a local dish I tried or a story I’d completely forgotten.
What are some common challenges you face in your line of work, and how do you address them?
I run Capture alongside working full-time as a secondary school teacher, so time is my biggest challenge. I've had to teach myself every stage of building the business - from designing the journals and formatting them for print to building a website, marketing, social media, working with UGC creators and now learning about wholesale distribution. I fit it around weekends and school holidays, often using online resources and YouTube to teach myself.
Any exciting developments on the horizon?
My biggest development is securing Capture’s first physical stockist. Wrap and Joy, a new independent store opening in Formby this October, will stock the Europe, Asia and North America editions. My next goal is to build on that milestone and secure more independent UK stockists in time for Christmas.
Where would you like the business to be in five years’ time?
I’d love to see Capture regularly restocked in independent gift and travel shops across the UK and US, as well as major retailers such as Waterstones. I’ve already had interest from contacts in Germany, the Netherlands and the US, so international retail is something I’d love to develop too. Ultimately, I’d love Capture to grow enough to become my full-time business.
How can people get involved with what you do?
The full collection can be discovered at capturetraveljournals.com and purchased through Amazon in the UK, US and Europe. I’d also love to hear from independent retailers interested in stocking Capture Travel Journals.
