Using Joplin for Travel Research

Joplin is an open-source note taking application available for Windows, Mac OS, iOS and Android. It’s very similar to Evernote, if you’re familiar with that: you make a bunch of note files and organize them into notebooks, basically. And did I mention it’s free?

I’ve been using Joplin to organize my travel research for the last 6 months or so, and it’s been a WONDERFUL tool for me. I get asked quite a bit about how I organize my notes, so I figured I’d write a post for y’all and sing the praises of one of my favorite apps.

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How I use Joplin for travel research

The important thing is to stay organized, so I set myself up for success by creating multiple notebooks to sort notes into.

I have one notebook for each continent/region, then sub-notebooks for each country. (I also have individual notebooks for general travel, packing, housesitting, digital nomad stuff, packing and seasonal work– things related to traveling but not necessarily location-specific.)

When I’m actively researching a trip, I make ANOTHER sub-notebook just for that trip. For instance, I’m planning a tour around the Devon and Cornwall area next year and I have a lot to research to do, so I made a separate notebook just for that trip.

Another option is to tag notes with the city or county location, or even with the trip name. That’d work better if you don’t want to keep making sub-notebooks nested into each other, or if you want to tag, like, monastery stays from multiple countries and be able to pull all that info together in one place easily.

(The search does a similar thing, but it’s dependent on what text is in the note. If you have a specific topic you want tagged it’s better just to do it yourself.)

I also made sure to sync the Joplin phone app to the desktop version, so I can make edits or do research whatever device I’m on.

Now that I have my notebooks set up, I can get to researching. I have the Joplin Web Clipper on my browser, and I use it for EVERYTHING. I look up local tourism websites, blog posts, recommendations in Facebook groups, random Threads or Instagram posts, whatever I can find that is useful to my trip, and I save it into the corresponding notebook.

The Joplin Web Clipper has a few different modes. You can save entire webpages, simplified versions, just the text or even just the URL. I tend to use the simplified webpage because it tends to work the best without bloating my note, but sometimes there’s a compatibility issue and I have to use something else.

For Facebook group posts or other forum threads, I just copy-paste the text with the date and either a link to the thread or the name of the FB group. The web clipper doesn’t clip comments, and usually that’s where the best info is anyway so I do have to do that manually.

Another great feature is you can attach files, images and screenshots to the notes!

So all those random PDF maps that tourist websites like to give out, but get lost immediately on your desktop? Attach it to a note and BAM, there is it forever– and properly sorted, too.

Or if you watch a TikTok video or Youtube vlog that has a lot of informative text? Just screenshot it and you can attach that to the note.

Once I’ve accumulated as much info as I want, I make the Master Research Note. This is where I compile everything I need into one text file.

I usually write down specific places I want to visit, packing notes, bits of history of the local area and links to the OTHER notes that have important information like the PDF maps or whatever. This is also where I keep my itinerary (if I have one), and recommended restaurants, stores, tours, whatever. I then refer back to this whenever I make my bookings!

Final Thoughts

Joplin has made collecting travel research from around the web VERY easy for me. I used to have to keep switching between websites trying to find all the posts and comments I saved, and it was very annoying. Because I have a centralized location to keep all my research in now, I’m better able to plan my trips because I’m not constantly scrambling for all the info that I KNOW I have somewhere. Yay!