Sketchnoting Scotland: How visual notes made my travels more meaningful

Creating reflective sketchnotes of our family trip to Scotland helped deepen my enjoyment of our memories and created a visual keepsake.

This sketchbook has been with me since 2010, collecting sketchnotes from cities like Washington, D.C., Portland, and Paris. It’s been my version of Bilbo Baggins’ green book, filled with stories and memories.

In June, I traveled to Scotland with my family. It was full of memories I was grateful we could all share.

I created sketchnotes of our trip, but this time I decided not to make them while we were traveling. I knew our days would be busy, and I didn’t want the added pressure of sketchnoting the day’s events hanging over me each night.

Instead, I focused on enjoying the experience. Each day, I shot photos while we explored Scotland, and each evening, I created a voice-to-text note about the day's events. Slowly, I built reference materials for my travel sketchnoting process.

This reflective approach to sketchnoting travel, or creating sketchnotes at home, after the travel happened, revealed several unexpected benefits that I’ll share. It’s inspired me to offer a workshop in September to teach you how to use this approach too.

What’s in this post:

• 24 pages of my Scotland travel sketchnotes.

• The process I used to create reflective sketchnotes.

• Learnings from using a reflective sketchnoting approach.

• Details about the Reflective Travel Sketchnotes Workshop Video for $20.

Okay, let’s get into it!

My Sketchnotes of Scotland

My goal was to create a visual story using sketchnotes to capture our daily travel experiences in and around Glasgow. Below are photos of the twenty-four pages of travel sketchnotes from Scotland, arranged in twelve 2-page spreads.

I created these sketchnotes in the weeks after returning from the trip using a reflective sketchnoting approach. The photos are subtly color corrected for readability so you get a sense of what these pages look like in person.

I created the Scotland title before I left, and did nothing else until I returned home to Milwaukee. The Glasgow Tolbooth tower was such an ever-present character that I had to feature it.

I wanted to start the second spread with a strong visual, and the St. Michael’s Church in Linlithgow was perfect. Took a while to create all of those bricks!

This spread was the most complex of all. I aimed to capture many small details to convey the multiple new experiences flooding my mind as I explored Glasgow.

The entryway of Stirling Castle in Stirling anchors this page because it was our family’s favorite castle. This is where I noticed marker bleed-through, so I used a Neuland white cover marker to subdue it a little bit.

This spread focused on the village of Alloa and Alloa Tower, the home of my wife’s ancestral family, the Erskines. It was very meaningful for Gail to be here so I dedicated this page to the 1st Earl of Mar and a drawing of the tower itself.

Here’s the day trip by bus to the Scottish Highlands, with multiple vignettes from the places we visited. There is more marker bleed through, the only disadvantage of the green sketchbook’s thin, uncoated paper.

Our day trip to the Scottish Highlands would not have been complete without the best chippy we ate in Scotland, in Oban, near the sea. The church and castle on our route back to Glasgow filled out this fantastic day.

Edinburgh’s day trip featured cannons fired daily at 1pm and a suit of armor which I thought turned out quite well for a marker rendering.

Edinburgh spread part two features the crest over the castle entryway and a larger sketch as we walked down the Royal Mile, hungry for lunch.

Glasgow marked our last day trip in Scotland before we headed south to Birmingham and the International Sketchnote Camp. I featured the old Glasgow Cathedral, the St. Mungo mural, and two red phone booths I saw near the entrance of The University of Glasgow.

This spread of our Glasgow day trip included more notes about the University and our final dinner in Glasgow. The right page featured three vignettes of the University of Glasgow and an imaginary Harry Potter.

This spread ended the sketchnotes with a final day in Glasgow and the clock at Glasgow Central. I always create an observations page on the final page to capture my thoughts after reflection. I included my kids’ observations too.

The Reflective Travel Sketchnoting Process

During the trip, I kept my documentation approach simple: produce the most detailed images and notes possible with the least effort. I wanted to make sure I would stay consistent for the whole trip by keeping documentation lightweight and easy.

Edinburgh pages penciled and half the story written. Notice the margin lines?

Reflective Sketchnote Building Process

When I retuned home the real work started, where I reflected on each day’s events and photos, combining it all into a cohesive visual narative in my sketchbook.

• I referenced my notes with daily details and my photos, making use of the web to search for historical information online and to consult maps for locations.

• In the sketchbook, I used a soft-lead Faber-Castell pencil to mark out margins on the pages and sketch out elements of the page to determine the layout, using the references above to structure the page.

• Once the pencil work was done, I began inking in the drawings, using my photos as reference for the ink work. Sometimes I wrote the story part first.

• With images inked, I began writing the story with my text-to-speech notes as a reference. I wanted a more narrative-driven approach than a neutral, journalistic retelling, so I incorporated notes that served as a when and what reference, weaving them into a story between the inked images.

• When the spread was fully inked and written, I erased the soft pencil lines and used markers to color in the drawings on the page. I used both Neuland and Tombow dual brush markers for this.

• To photograph the finished spreads, I chose a bright location on my kitchen table and laid a large sheet of clear glass from an old picture frame over the sketchbook to keep the pages flat and provide a clear view of the opened book.

• In Photoshop, I applied a subtle brightening to all the images.

A fully inked spread from Edinburgh Castle, ready for color with my photo of a castlew building on my iPad screen.

What I learned from reflective travel sketchnoting

I’ve captured sketchnotes as I’ve traveled but many times it’s not practical when you have a busy travel schedule and kids along for the ride. Capturing photos and daily notes on the road and building sketchnotes at home with reflection worked well.

Here’s what I learned:

• Creating sketchnotes after travel was an opportunity to relive my experiences as I rebuilt the trip from references and memories they stirred up.

• My memories were deepened by sketchnoting them into a cohesive story. The extra work added additional detail and captured it on paper.

• It was hard work but by spreading it out over a few weeks made it managable. I looked forward to my sketchnoting sessions.

• Having photo and written references ready to go let me find time where I could: an hour here or 15 minutes there, to move the sketcnnote pages forward.

• I’ve created a family keepsake to enjoy and to reflect on in the future. It’s a souvenir better than anything I could have purchased in Scotland.

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I loved the reflective travel sketchnoting process so much that I’m offering a workshop video and PDF templates to teach it to you!

Reflective Travel Sketchnotes Workshop Video: $20

Have you ever wanted to create travel sketchnotes from an experience you’ve had, just using the photos and memories you’ve got?

In the Reflective Travel Workshop, I’ll guide you through my process for creating travel sketchnotes and then help you reflect on your own photos and memories so that you can make travel sketchnotes of your own trips, too!

This 2-hour recorded video includes a set of downloadable, printable sketching templates and a process to kickstart your own travel sketchnoting practice.

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— Mike

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Sketchnote Lab is Mike Rohde’s space designed to bridge the gap between sketchnote theory and practice. The goal is to guide you in integrating sketchnoting into your everyday life. Learn more about Sketchnote Lab.

Mike is the author of The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook, bestselling books that teach regular people how to start and keep sketchnoting.

He founded the Sketchnote Army and hosts the Sketchnote Army Podcast, where he interviews visual thinkers to understand what makes them tick.

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