Cheating on my Moleskine

A few months ago, I did the unthinkable. I started cheating on my Moleskine with a Nomad Adventure Journal.

It started the way these things always start. An innocent Google search. I was just looking. Just wanted to see what was out there. I never intended for it to go beyond looking. I swear.

Of course, it did.

For several years, I've used a Moleskine journal when I'm working on stories in the field. It's durable and highly portable and I've dragged Moleskines on all kinds of projects, from writing about snakes (that cartoon only looks a little bit like me) to a group of amazing volunteers at a place called Nachusa Grasslands in Illinois. The raw material for every article or field piece I've written for the last five years is in a Moleskine somewhere on one of my shelves.

But that may be changing.  As much as I love my Moleskine for everyday writing and journal keeping, the Nomad is great for the field. (Disclaimer: I have no affiliate marketing relationship with the folks who make the Nomad).

The notebooks are printed on recycled materials using soy-based inks. (A big plus) I use the blank journals, but they have specialty journals for many different pursuits, including:

Travel Journals with pre-printed pages to help you keep track of people you meet along the way, restaurants, recommendations, tickets, maps and almost anything else you can think of.

Bird Watching Journals are set up to track sightings, weather conditions, hiking directions, and everything the serious (and not so serious) birder needs to keep track of their experiences.

They also have specialized journals for Music/Festivals, Hiking/Backpacking, Paddling, and Fly Fishing.

The notebooks themselves are very durable and stand up to rugged use. They are top spiral-bound and the cardboard covers are very stiff and make writing on the go much easier than standard notebooks.

The paper is smooth and of substantial weight. It takes well to every writing instrument I've tried on it, from mechanical pencils to rollerballs to fountain pens to the nub of a red crayon that was the only writing instrument in my pack a couple of weeks ago. The notebooks are 5"x7" alone. With a cover, the size goes to 6"x8" (still small enough to fit easily into a daypack and they won't add any noticeable weight to longer backpacking trips). Each notebook has 120 pages.

You can order the standard water-resistant cover (it zips closed) to hold your journals or upgrade slightly to leather. I use the standard cover (it feels like cordura nylon) because it stands up well to water and to being crammed in the bottom of my backpack and tossed into the floorboards of trucks and the wells of kayaks.

This is one durable journal.

If you want to use them for your organization, the Nomad Journal covers (leather and standard) can be customized with logos.

If you're looking for a compact, durable journal, check out the Nomad.

(Do you own a Nomad? Or have a journal you like? Leave a comment or email me. I'd love to check it out.)