I really like Cloth & Paper’s Travel Notebook Collection. There are 13 different notebooks you can choose from to include in your travel notebook, ranging from classic weekly and monthly spreads to more unique options like a daily wellness notebook and a task planner. It’s really a great option if you want a couple of specific things, or even just a regular monthly and weekly notebook plus a blank notebook in the back you can fill with to-do lists and replace anytime without needing an entirely new planner. It’s great for students, too, because you can have a notebook dedicated to tracking your assignments and syllabus for the semester. You’ll need to create your own, though, as Cloth & Paper doesn’t have a dedicated academic notebook for you to select.
I tried both the A5 Slim and the Pocket Plus size, and I really prefer the A5 Slim for a traditional planner experience. The Pocket Plus would be fun to bring on a trip; I wish I’d had it on my latest trip to store little mementos and important things like parking receipts, and could have also written out notes and the plan for the week-long trip. But otherwise, the larger A5 slim was much easier to write on and use for my daily notes and planning.
You’ll want the Clear Vinyl Travel Notebook Cover ($23 to $25) no matter which size you choose, which includes elastic bindings to bring all the notebooks you buy together, and you can also pick up more colorful elastic options to add a little more personality to your planner.
Erin Condren
Academic Planner
I’ve heard a lot of good things about Erin Condren. Founded in 2005 by Erin Condren, it’s known for the LifePlanner that’s full of various spreads and productivity tools that you can customize, but there are other variations of planners you can find from the brand. While you’ll usually customize your Erin Condren planner if you shop directly on the site, there’s a predesigned Target line you can shop that won’t give you options, but will give you a well-made planner that’s ready to go immediately.
I’ve been testing the Erin Condren Academic Planner you’ll find at Target, but it’s sold out as we head into the new year; Erin Condren’s website has similar, but more expensive options with more cover and customization options. This base version from Target is a great fit for students and people with deadline-style or client-based work they want to organize. Each month has two pages following the monthly spread to set your most important to-dos and dates, but also a full page to track the month’s deadlines and what class (or client, or in my case, story beat) they’re for. After that, there are weekly spreads with long columns for each day, and seven blocks of four lines that you can label with things like specific classes, clubs, or organizations, or parenting and household tasks, as I track. It’s been a really easy planner to add into my lifestyle, even though it’s made for students. There’s a class tracker in the front of the planner, too, which I skipped using, plus a detailed holiday calendar, and the back has project and exam pages, plus blank note pages, and even a simple sheet of stickers with things like “Exam,” “Midterm,” and “Paper Due.”