Wilko Travelers Notebook/Organiser Review!

Lots of people have been talking about this new TN style notebook/organiser that Wilko has recently released in their latest stationery collection. So I thought I'd get my hands on one, have a play around with it, and give you my opinion on it!

First of all, if you've not heard about it yet or haven't got your hands on one, here's a little info on the dimensions and nitty gritty 'boring' stuff. 

It's an A5 Travelers Notebook style notebook. It costs £5, and comes with four A5 notebooks/inserts inside. The cover is 'Leather effect' which is some sort of PU material. Inside there are four elastics, and there are two poppers on the cover to fasten it (which means there's a little growing room in this notebook!). 

They list it on their website as an 'organiser' but many of us know that even though the inserts might be for organising, the style of this notebook is very similar to a TN.

It is quite a chunk of a notebook, which personally I quite like. The material used for the cover is very floppy by itself, but with the four notebooks inside it holds its shape. Once you've opened the notebooks up inside and used them a little more, the whole notebook does lie completely flat. Which in my mind is definitely a perk! 

The double popper is a really nice design choice, I've seen a couple of people in the community mention that they like this feature. They've designed it so there's extra material on the flap, which covers the second popper. So if you choose to fasten it on the inside popper, the popper you aren't using wont be on show. It's a small design decision that makes a big difference. 

The inserts that come with it are very basic, they're undated and each one is decorated differently. It was really nice to see that they hadn't just put four of their classic lined A5 notebooks in there. Instead they've actually put some thought into each one, so it gives you a bit of a starting point on how to use this TN as a whole.

The first insert is the 'Daily Journal' which has a leaf design on the cover and the title is gold foiled.

Inside each page is split into 3 sections with lines, and a little space to put the date. I quite like this and think you could actually use this for a multitude of different things. Of course there's it's intended purpose of a daily journal, but it would work well as a gratitude journal,  or even a planner if you split one box in two, for the weekend.

The next one is titled 'Edit Undo.' which again has the gold foil on the title, and this time it has a pink ombre cover. 

To start with I thought this was just an insert of plain paper, but when you get to the halfway point in the middle, all the paper in the other half of the insert is actually gridded. I quite liked this as you almost have two notebooks in one, and the grid boxes are also nice and dinky.

The third insert is 'Notes', this one is probably has the most plain cover. It's just a really dark teal, very similar to the PU cover of the TN, and again the title is gold foiled (gotta love a bit of gold foiling!).

This one, as you can probably tell, is a simple lined notebook all the way through. When I have any sort of planner or journal, I always need some sort of doodle/scribbly note paper or insert where I can brain dump things. So even though it's very simple, I don't see it as a bad addition to this TN.

Last of all we have this insert which has the title 'This Year' on it. The cover has a green 'tiger style' stripe design. 

I feel like the whole Hypernatural collection that this notebook is a part of, has a jungle sort of vibe to it.

Inside each month takes up the front and the back of a page, with the dates going down the left hand side of the pages. Once you get to the end of December it goes onto some 'notes' pages, which are just lined paper. 

Of course this is undated so you could start using it anytime of the year. I suppose much like the first insert, there could be various different uses for this insert. Planning your year ahead, making notes of peoples Birthdays, or even a 'sentence a day' style of journaling.

I think the elastics were the only thing I had doubts about. As many of us who use Travelers Notebook style journals and planners know, you are swapping and moving inserts in & out of the TN every week, sometimes daily. The elastic used in here reminds me of the type of elastic they use on product packaging around Christmas time, basically it feels a bit cheap. 

Granted it's only £5 for the whole thing, but this is one of the main parts going towards the functionality of the notebook. If it snaps or weakens, you can't use it as intended anymore.

Saying that I've not fully used this for weeks on end yet, so I guess time will tell. I also don't think it would be too difficult to rethread with different elastic if something were to happen to it though.

All in all it's a pretty good little notebook. Still not 100% sure what to call it, but I'm definitely swaying more towards a TN because it's so similar to how those function. 

I'm also really excited to see if Wilko bring out more of these again in the future, and possibly expand on the sizes they offer. 

If you want to get your hands on one, they do have it available online here.

Have you used this TN style notebook yet? Do you like it? Let me know!

- Daisy X

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