7 tips for traveling like an artist

After spending a month travelling around Norway, sketchbook in hand, rain in hair, coffee never quite hot enough, I realised that seeing the world like an artist isn’t about having the best gear or the perfect itinerary. It is about slowing down enough to actually see.

Here are my top seven tips for how to open your eyes and really travel like an artist:

1. Draw before you snap

Put down your phone. Pick up the pencil. A two-minute sketch of a café chair or passing face or fabulous fjord will root the moment in your memory far longer than another 12 identical photos.

2. Chase the light, not the landmarks

Forget the itinerary. Follow sunlight instead — through fog, over mountains, or glinting off a stranger’s hair. Artists travel by illumination, not TripAdvisor stars.

3. Pack light, observe heavy

You don’t need five sketchbooks, six packs of pencils and seven palettes of paint. One small kit and open eyes are enough. Artists don’t hoard things, they hoard impressions.

4. Sit still every day

Pick a spot… the same place, the same bench, the same time. Sketch. Write. Think. Repeat. What tiny changes have you observed?

5. Make the mundane majestic

The ferry timetable, a puddle reflection, the sound of locals arguing about fish — that’s art. Stop waiting for inspiration. It’s already waving at you from the ferry stop.

6. Keep a travel sketchbook-journal hybrid

Glue in receipts or gallery tickets, draw the view, jot down overheard nonsense. Don’t curate, just collect chaos. When you read it later, you’ll see not what you saw, but what you felt.

7. Travel to notice, not to escape

You bring yourself everywhere you go — pencils, dreams, and all. The goal isn’t to run away from life, but to see it more clearly, in slightly different lighting.

So, wherever you’re going, be it Norway or just to the next neighbourhood, slow down, look closer, and let wonder do the rest. Every journey becomes art when you travel with your eyes wide open.

x Victoria

About Victoria Hall

Victoria Hall is an English-born, Australian-based writer, artist and illustrator. She is the creator of three picture books for children, Penny Prickles at Coogee Beach, Eggy Peggy Has Lost Her Leggy and The Fairy Beasts.

Victoria studied Fine Art and Illustration at Curtin University and Sydney University, as well as Business at The University of West London.

For more updates on Victoria’s projects, follow her on Instagram or check out her bio here.