Why You Should Try Travel Sketching Instead of Taking Photos

Feature Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash

This article is guest-authored by Kristen Henry King

I have about 14,000 photos from my last two years of traveling. Want to know how many I have actually looked at since I took them? Maybe 30.

That realization hit me while I was sitting at a cafe in Chiang Mai, scrolling through my camera roll trying to find a specific sunset photo from Bali. I could not find it. They all looked the same. Hundreds of golden hour shots blurring together into one giant forgettable blob.

That is when the girl sitting next to me pulled out a small sketchbook and a tiny set of watercolors. She started painting the street scene in front of us. Nothing fancy. Just the orange temple roof, a couple of tuk-tuks, and the noodle cart across the road. It took her maybe 20 minutes. And honestly, that one rough little painting captured more of what Chiang Mai actually feels like than any of my 600 photos from that city ever did.

I was hooked. I bought a cheap watercolor set the next day and started sketching. And here is the thing nobody tells you: you do not need to be good at art to get something incredible out of travel sketching.

You actually remember the places you sketch

Here is the real reason I got into this. When you sketch a place, you have to actually look at it. Not just point your phone and tap. You sit there for 15 or 20 minutes and notice things you would have walked right past.

The cracked tiles on that building in Hoi An. The way the light falls differently on wet streets in Lisbon after rain. The specific shade of blue on a fishing boat in the Philippines that no Instagram filter could ever nail.

Your brain locks those details in because you spent time actively observing them instead of just snapping and moving on. I can tell you more about the places I have sketched than the places I have photographed, and it is not even close.

It costs almost nothing and weighs even less

If you are living out of a backpack (and let’s be real, most of us are), the last thing you need is more stuff. A travel watercolor setup is stupidly lightweight. We are talking a small tin of paints, a water brush pen, and a pocket sketchbook. The whole thing fits in the side pocket of your daypack and weighs less than your phone charger.

Compare that to lugging around a DSLR, extra lenses, a tripod, and a charging kit. I know some travelers who have an entire bag dedicated to camera gear. That is fine if photography is your main thing, but for the rest of us who just want to capture memories without adding weight, sketching is hard to beat.

I started with a basic set that cost me about $15 at an art store in Bangkok. You can also grab a dedicated travel set online before your trip. I eventually upgraded to Tobio’s travel watercolor collection which is compact enough for backpack life and has way better pigment than the cheap sets I was burning through every few months. But seriously, start with whatever you can find. The gear matters way less than the habit.

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You do not need to be “good at art”

I need to say this clearly because it is the number one excuse people give: you do not have to be talented. At all.

My first sketches looked like a five-year-old did them. Wobbly lines, colors bleeding everywhere, proportions that made no sense. But here is what surprised me: I still loved them. Because they were mine, and they reminded me exactly of where I was and how I felt when I made them.

Nobody is grading your sketchbook. Nobody even has to see it. This is not for your Instagram (although honestly, some of the rough ones end up getting more engagement than polished photos because people find them interesting and different).

The only skill you actually need is the willingness to sit still for 15 minutes. If you can do that, you can travel sketch.

It forces you to slow down

Nobody really talks about this one. When you are hopping between cities every few days, doing the hostel-bus-temple-bar-repeat cycle, everything starts to blur together. Sketching forces you to stop.

You pick a spot. You sit down. You look at something carefully for a while. And in that time, you are not checking your phone, not planning your next move, not comparing hostels on Booking.com. You are just there.

Some of my best travel memories are not from the big tourist attractions. They are from random afternoons spent sitting on a wall somewhere, painting a street scene while locals walked by and occasionally peeked over my shoulder. I had more genuine conversations with local people while sketching than I ever did while taking photos. People are curious about it. They want to see what you are drawing. It is an instant connection.

How to actually start

Alright, if I have convinced you, here is what you need to get going. Keep it simple because overcomplicating this is the fastest way to quit before you start.

What to bring: a small watercolor palette (12 colors is more than enough), a water brush pen (the kind with a built-in water reservoir so you do not need a cup), and a sketchbook with thick enough paper that it will not buckle when it gets wet. That is it. Three things.

What to sketch first: start with something that is not moving. A building, a plate of food, a view from your hostel window. Do not try to sketch people or animals right away unless you want to feel frustrated on day one.

How long it takes: give yourself 15 to 20 minutes per sketch. That is it. You are not painting the Mona Lisa. Quick and rough is the whole point. Some of my favorite sketches took less than 10 minutes.

When to do it: I usually sketch during those dead hours when you are killing time anyway. Waiting for a bus, sitting at a cafe after lunch, hanging out on a beach in the late afternoon. Instead of scrolling your phone, pull out the sketchbook.

The payoff

Six months into travel sketching, I had a sketchbook full of wonky, imperfect, absolutely wonderful little paintings from 11 countries. When I flip through it, every single page brings back a specific moment. Not just what a place looked like, but what it smelled like, what sounds were around me, how the air felt.

My camera roll still cannot do that.

A cheap set of paints, a little book, and the willingness to sit still somewhere and actually pay attention. That is the whole thing. Start there.

>>>BIO:

Kristen Henry King is an actress, singer, and founder of KHK Creative.  She has spent years working in creative industries, from performing to brand coaching. She writes about simple habits that make a journey more memorable.

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