Falcon Travelers

I get that question a lot: How many inserts does your Traveler’s Notebook hold. Specially when talking about a Regular sized Traveler. I always feel a little lost with this question, because I know there is no straight forward answer. It all depends on the thickness of the inserts. That’s why I thought I would write a blog post about it and try to show you what I mean.

I do have a standard respons, because generally speaking this is what it comes down to. However it all depends on the inserts. I Usually say, my Regular Size (RS) cover allows for 3-4 inserts, that’s booklets, folders and such and my XL RS, being 20 mm wider, will allow for 6-8 inserts.

However, like I said, it all depends on the inserts, not all inserts are the same. You have your folders, plastic zipper pouches, leather wallet inserts and booklets.

Now most things are fairly straight forward and it is clear that a folder will get thicker when you put stuff in it and so does a zipper pouch. A leather insert has a thickness of it’s own and mostly that seems to be clear. It’s the booklets that cause the confusion. Not all booklets are equal…there’s even a difference between a booklet that hasn’t been written in and one that is full. This is something you should take into account when looking for inserts. Also my inserts, the Falcon Files, are about 60 pages. Looking around on Etsy and elsewhere, I have found most inserts are about 40 pages. Fieldnotes booklets are 48 pages. Midori inserts and Moleskine cahiers have about the same number of pages as my Falcon Files. This all makes it difficult to compare.

So I’m not going to do that, I’m just going to give you a real life example. My own Regular size Traveler.

This is my Little red Dragon, my journaling TN at the end of December 2015 and all inserts are full.

I have a leather wallet insert,

A Midori Plastic zipper pouch, with stuff,

A journaling insert, the Arrows dot-grid free Falcon File printable, this one is completely full,

A folder with pen-loops, decorated as time passed and with stuff…stickers, bills etc.

My miscellaneous booklet, been with me since march 2015, half full,

And to show that it really is a wallet that wraps around the inserts, here’s the back, with bits and bobs in it.

I’m counting 5 inserts in this Traveler. making it rather full, but I still feel it is doable. I’ve got no inserts sticking out at the end and I can still hold it with one hand. Any more however would not do. Not with these inserts and not when they are full. As you can see in the below picture, a full insert can get rather bigger.

This isn’t even an insert with lots of photo’s and ephemera added in. In the picture below you can see 2 new unwritten inserts. Both have the same amount of pages and both are new, however the middle one is made with Tomoe River Paper. The Tomoe River paper is thinner, making for a thinner booklet.

Now since I want to start using the Little Red Dragon as a planner again and keep the personal size as a wallet plus bullet journal, I made 3 new inserts all from Tomoe River paper and added them to the Traveler. Measuring again, these three new inserts replacing the 2 previous inserts now give me a 5 cm high stack…1 cm less then it was before.

Now I know with use this will grow again, but for now I’m fine with this. Below you see the new inserts I added.

I have to blame Janet for the angels, but I’m pretty chuffed with these covers.

The first insert is a modern style MOTP-WOTP combination diary, which is 72 pages.

The second is a dot-grid journaling insert, with 60 pages.

Followed by the Miscellaneous insert for this year, 64 pages.

With birthdays,

a Password Tracker

conversion tables, a menu planner and an index listing in the back

I hope you see what I mean, when I say, there is no simple answer to that simple question. I can say 3-4 inserts, like most do and yes, that would be true….depending on the inserts…and depending on how you plan to use them.

I know I will probably be best off with 2 booklets max, or perhaps now, with the Tomoe River paper, 3 max…however those are 5-6 inserts and not 2-3.

 

I hope you found this informative.

Have a wonderful weekend and a fabulous 2016!

xx Monique